Juan Fernando Quintero during a match with the Argentinian River Plate.Jam Media
The novel about the next destination of Juan Fernando Quintero has had a surprising outcome and the Junior has broken the Colombian soccer market.
The Barranquilla club announced this Friday in a brief statement that it has reached an agreement with the unbalancing left-hander, without going into details, and "if he passes the medical exams" he will join the team.
Although the final amounts have not been revealed, he is a signing of unusual caliber for the Colombian league.
After not having renewed with the Argentine River Plate, of which he is a living legend after having scored the decisive goal in the 2018 Copa Libertadores final that they beat Boca Juniors, Juanfer, as everyone knows him, listened to offers from various teams.
Among them, according to all the press reports, Flamengo from Brazil, current champion of the Libertadores, and Junior himself.
Quintero and the 'shark team' environment had given each other abundant winks on social networks in recent days, but the day before a bucket of cold water had arrived that seemed to conclude the negotiation.
"I wanted to tell you that junior's issue could not be done … and thank all the people in this beautiful club and especially its fans who felt that love and respect all the time," the midfielder had written on Thursday.
But everything seems to have turned around in less than 24 hours and the dream is no longer unattainable.
"You know what we did to make this possible," the soccer player reacted this Thursday to a trill from Alejandro Char, the former mayor of Barranquilla who pulls Junior's strings.
"Here we are, thank God."
Once again, the Junior is reinforced precisely in an electoral year, with elections for mayors and governors in October.
The Char house, as the former mayor's family is known, dominates business, politics and soccer in Barranquilla.
The owners of the Olímpica emporium of 350 supermarkets and drugstores, as well as a radio station and the Serfinanza bank, also control Junior, the great passion of the city.
Popular legend ensures that the mood of the voters moves to the rhythm of the performance of the shark team.
Alex Char, as everyone knows him, boasts of having changed the face of Barranquilla during his two mayoralties and attempted an unsuccessful presidential candidacy last year.
Although he does not officiate as team president, he has been in charge for years of announcing each new signing in his speeches or on his social networks.
The family has dominated the Barranquilla mayor's office since 2008 and the Atlantic Governorate since 2019.
Quintero, despite his enormous talent, has always been nicknamed in Colombia with affectionate diminutives, Juanfer or Quinterito, but he will turn 30 on January 18.
A year younger than James Rodríguez, they have been friends since they were just children in Envigado. When he was installed in European football with Porto, he was seen as the natural heir to James, but his career then went into decline.
Photos of him abounded on social media accompanied by reggaeton stars.
He wandered on loan to other clubs without much success until he returned on loan to Independiente Medellín for the 2017 campaign and finally signed for River Plate in 2018, where he finished recovering his level.
The left-hander has been one of the two Colombians who has scored in two different World Cups.
At just 21 years old, he scored the goal in the 2-1 win over the Ivory Coast in the group stage of Brazil 2014 and also scored against Japan in the Colombian debut in Russia 2018. Now he will drink from the tradition of the great Caribbean team, which It has had among its talented bearers of the number 10 both Giovanni Hernández -nicknamed at the time "the million dollar boy"- and Carlos El Pibe Valderrama.
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