Riquelme To Atlético Still In The Works

Román Riquelme´s days at Boca are officially over- for now. So several different clubs in Europe have either been rejected or show no interest in the Argentine playmaker.

Riquelme will be arriving on Tuesday to join Villarreal in order to ¨finalize his contract¨. As of right now, he is not in coach Manuel Pellegrini´s or the club´s brass´ plans for he upcoming season or future as a matter of fact.

The option of heading to Atlético Madrid once again has surfaced as the team sees a dire need for a player of his qualities on the attacking front. Aleti will be looking to make a big push towards the UEFA Cup as well as the La Liga title. For the club to not bring home some type of hardware this year after spending well over 100 million euros with acquisitions like José Antonio Reyes and Simão Sabrosa would certainly leave coach Javier Aguirre out of a job.

As of right now, Atlético have completed their offseason shopping, but their upcoming UEFA Cup match against FK Vojvodina will tell whether Los Colchoneros will go after him. There are several aspects of this transaction they would have to consider. The op talking point would be the price tag, although it is not an obscene one , would they still be willing to pay that for an individual with such a complicated personality like Riquelme´s.

HIs personality was part of the reason why Mauricio Macri and Carlos Bianchi sold him off to Barcelona back in 2002, although these two gave him more room to be who he was. With Villarreal in the meantime, it was his personality that caused the fallout with coaching staff and administration late last year.