Colombian James Rodríguez will no longer play for São Paulo and, according to the Spanish newspaper AS, the Morumbis team has a target to replace him. This is Argentine Erik Lamela, who is 31 years old and belongs to Sevilla, in Spain.
With James’ departure, São Paulo will free up a good amount of money to invest in Lamela’s salary. The attacking midfielder has a contract with Sevilla until the end of June, therefore, the player could arrive for free, with Tricolor only needing to pay for salary and gloves.
The publication also says that Lamela would be the “Plan B” of the team led by Thiago Carpini. This is because the board and technical committee’s greatest desire would be to have another Argentine: Ángel Di María, who belongs to Benfica and is also under contract only until the end of the European season.
Lamela came up in River Plate’s youth ranks and was sold to Roma, from Italy, in 2011. In 2013, he transferred to Tottenham, from England, a club where he played for eight years, before arriving at Sevilla, in 2021.
Lamela was also the winner of the 2021 Puskás award, scoring a stunning goal against Arsenal, when he was still playing for Tottenham.