Speaking on 'Caffè Di Marzio', the podcast in collaboration between TuttoMercatoWeb.com and Gianlucadimarzio.com, Gianluca Di Marzio spoke about Tiago Gabriel, the 2004-born Lecce defender who is also liked by Milan:
“Last night I was watching Lecce-Fiorentina and once again I had confirmation of how strong Tiago Gabriel is. Do you remember how much Lecce and Pantaleo Corvino paid for Tiago Gabriel? I went back to check my notes, my WhatsApp conversations from the time of his arrival a year and a half ago, and the Tiago Gabriel deal cost Lecce one million euros plus bonuses, with a contract that was certainly quite low for a defender coming from the Portuguese league, from Estrela Amadora, a club where Lecce have also gone shopping several times in recent years with great satisfaction, from Gaspar to Tiago Gabriel to Danilo Veiga. One million euros plus bonuses, and I was thinking about how many players of Tiago Gabriel’s level can be found in Italy, Italian players, for one million euros plus bonuses: I would say few, very few. Today a good Serie B player probably costs double or even triple that and perhaps does not give the same kind of return or impact.
With Tiago Gabriel, Lecce are set to make yet another capital gain under Corvino’s management, a player who today is worth at least 25–30 million euros, knowing the prices Lecce set for their players.
There are already important top clubs, not only in Italy, willing to negotiate with Lecce to sign the Portuguese defender. In Italy, one of the most interested clubs is Milan, although no real negotiations have yet started. Corvino is one of the great architects of truly extraordinary transfer business, not only with Lecce but also during his time at Fiorentina and Bologna, so hands off Corvino and his transfer strategy, which has nothing to do with the crisis in Italian football. Instead, Corvino has been clever in understanding that today there are major opportunities in Portugal that can be exploited to enrich both the technical and financial value of a club, just as he once did by going to Serbia to sign Jovetic, Ljajic and Savic, and today he does it in Portugal with Gaspar, Danilo Veiga and Tiago Gabriel.
Without doubt, Tiago Gabriel will be one of the protagonists of the next transfer window and today he is one of the key figures in Lecce’s push for survival, which Di Francesco’s Lecce and Corvino will try to achieve until the very last second.”
