Bayern Munich Target Ronald Araujo, MU Aims Matthijs De Ligt

Bayern Mynchen defender Matthijs de Ligt is the target of Manchester United. (Instagram @mdeligt_)

JAKARTA - Manchester United may release Barcelona defender Ronald Araujo's target if Bayern Munich has targeted him. On the other hand, MU hopes to bring in defender Matthijs de Ligt who is about to be released by Bayern.

De Ligt dimmed when he left Ajax Amsterdam. In fact, De Ligt has been won by many elite European clubs. At that time, MU, Barcelona, Juventus and Bayern were competing to attract young Ajax stars.

Even Barca and MU had attacked each other in the media for fighting for the center-back of the Dutch national team. However, De Ligt instead chose Juve, who actually almost withdrew from the competition.

Meanwhile, midfielder Frenkie de Jong, De Ligt's close colleague in Ajax and the national team, has already joined Barca.

De Ligt joined Juve in 2019. However, the youngest player to ever play in the European competition final, the Europa League in 2017 when Ajax was defeated by Manchester United failed to shine in the Italian Serie A.

Failed to perform optimally like in Ajax, De Ligt was released by Juve to Bayern in 2022. Moreover, this Bundesliga club made a lucrative offer to Juve. De Ligt was released at a price of 67 million euros.

Despite being one of the most expensive defenders, De Ligt was unable to show his best performance at Bayern. Bayern's move to bring in South Korean centre-back Kim Min-jae from Napoli. Finally, the club borrowed defender Tottenham Hostpur Eric Dier until the end of the season with the option of a one-season extension.

After bringing Dier, Bayern are still hunting for Araujo. MU itself is actually interested in signing this Uruguayan national team defender.

But instead of competing with Bayern, the English Premier League club intends to bring De Ligt. MU hopes Bayern will pay a low price if they want to release the 24-year-old defender.

Previously, MU failed to bring De Ligt, but this time the Red Devils had a chance to bring in a defender who actually had the potential to be equal to Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi, Fabio Cannavaro or Alessandro Nesta.

The reason is, MU has manager Erik ten Hag who successfully polished De Ligt in Ajax. Yes, Ten Hag who orbited De Ligt, De Jong and Donny van de Beek.

Even Ten Hag has given confidence to De Ligt to captain Ajax even though he is only 19. Now, Ten Hag wants MU to be able to bring De Ligt.

Moving to MU can be a solution for De Ligt, who has lost his place in Bayern. Because coach Thomas Tuchel relies more on Dayot Upamecano and Kim. Moreover, De Ligt had a knee injury that made him absent for a long time so that his position was won by Kim.