The 19-year-old signed a long-term contract with BVB on Monday, ending his long-time affiliation with the South American giants <\/p>\n
Argentina Under\u00a020 international Leonardo Balerdi has completed a transfer to Borussia Dortmund, signing from Boca Juniors on a long-term contract.<\/p>\n
Reports in\u00a0Argentina\u00a0have indicated Dortmund agreed to pay \u20ac15 million (\u00a313m\/$17m) for the defender, with a further \u20ac2m potentially due to Boca in add-ons.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old rose through the ranks at youth level with Boca before graduating to the senior team in 2018.<\/p>\n
Article continues below<\/span> <\/p>\n Juve on alert: Exiled Icardi may have already played his final game for Inter Sarri vindicated for dropping Kepa as Chelsea & Pedro impress in Spurs win Magnificent Mane takes centre stage as league leaders Liverpool put on a five-star show Lukaku sends reminder that his Man Utd career is far from over <\/p>\n He has since\u00a0appeared in five Argentine Primera Division matches, earning the attention of Bundesliga leaders Dortmund.<\/p>\n BVB have drafted Balerdi in as cover for\u00a0Manuel Akanji, who is currently sidelined with , as they chase a first German title since 2012.<\/p>\n Dortmund sporting director Michael Zorc expressed his delight after announcing the signing of Balerdi on Monday, telling the club’s official website<\/em>: “The signing of Leonardo Balerdi is a transfer that was originally planned for the coming summer and is now being brought forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Leonardo is an intelligent and strong in .\u00a0He also has a good build-up and passing game.\u00a0We are very glad that he has chosen us and are convinced that he will help us with his talent in the future.”<\/p>\n Balerdi could be handed his first taste of Bundesliga football this coming Saturday, as Lucien Favre’s side take in a trip to RB Leipzig.<\/p>\n Dortmund currently a six-point lead over arch-rivals Bayern Munich at the top of the table, after winning 13 of their first 17 matches.<\/p>\n Favre now has Balerdi, Abdou Diallo, Dan-Axel Zagadou and Omer Toprak to call upon in the heart of the defence, with Akanji set to miss the remainder of the season.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 19-year-old signed a long-term contract with BVB on Monday, ending his long-time affiliation with the South American giants Argentina Under\u00a020 international Leonardo Balerdi has completed a transfer to Borussia Dortmund, signing from Boca Juniors on a long-term contract. Reports in\u00a0Argentina\u00a0have indicated Dortmund agreed to pay \u20ac15 million (\u00a313m\/$17m) for the defender, with a further…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Editors' Picks<\/h3>\n