Swansea City are on the verge of pulling off one of the signings of the summer by taking Renato Sanches, the prodigiously talented Portugal international, on a season-long loan from Bayern Munich. Talks between Swansea and Bayern, who paid €35m for Sanches last summer, are at an advanced stage and the Welsh club are quietly confident that an agreement is close.
The signing would be an incredible coup for Swansea and owes much to Paul Clement’s contacts at Bayern, where he worked as Carlo Ancelotti’s No2 before taking over at the Liberty Stadium in January. Clement knows Sanches from that period, having coached him for six months, and he encouraged Swansea to explore the possibility of signing the midfielder once it became clear that there could be a window of opportunity.
Swansea were realistic about their chances at the outset and accepted bigger clubs would be interested in Sanches, who was a target for Manchester United before joining Bayern, but Clement’s influence has been a key factor in getting the deal so far down the line. The Swansea head coach has spoken about utilising his contacts across Europe to try to bring in players and he retains close links with not only Ancelotti but other senior staff at Bayern.
Discussions between Swansea, Bayern and Sanches’s agent, Jorge Mendes, have gathered pace over the past 24 hours, turning what had seemed like an ambitious punt initially into a realistic prospect. It is understood the loan fee could be as high as €6m (£5.5m), although Swansea will regard that as money well spent to have a player with Sanches’s ability in their squad.
Sanches, born in Lisbon to parents from Cape Verde, came through at Benfica and emerged as one of the stars of Euro 2016, where he was named as the young player of the tournament. He registered his first goal for his country in the quarter-final victory over Poland and at 18 years and 328 days became the competition’s youngest finalist and winner, when Portugal beat France 1-0.
Sanches completed his move to Bayern a month before Euro 2016 for a fee that could rise to as high as €80m, depending on various clauses, including if the player wins the Fifa player of the year award. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Bayern’s CEO, described Sanches at the time as a “dynamic, tough and technically skilful midfielder who will make our team stronger”, yet it turned out to be a difficult first season for the teenager in Germany, where he played only 615 minutes in the Bundesliga.
Swansea will provide Sanches with a platform to regain his confidence and play regularly – something that would not have been certain at the more elite clubs that were pursuing him – and Ancelotti also knows the player will be in good hands with Clement. Sanches’s arrival will also give Swansea’s players and supporters a huge lift in what has been a difficult transfer window for the club following the sale of Gylfi Sigurdsson and anticipated departure of Fernando Llorente.