Nahuel Molina’s Roma Move is Funding his Own Replacement
The summer window has three weeks left before it shuts on the first of September and most of the business still to come will involve players moving down a level of importance rather than up. Nahuel Molina, the 28-year-old Argentina right-back, completed a permanent move from Atlético Madrid to Roma on the 12th of August, four years after Atlético signed him from Udinese.
Molina started the World Cup finals in both 2022 and 2026 for Argentina, the first won and the second lost to Spain, and remains first choice at international level. At club level, he made only 13 La Liga starts for Atlético last season. A player who cannot be dropped by his country and can barely start for his club is not a straightforward case, so what actually pushed him out of Madrid?
Image: Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Fee is Funding a Move for a Team-Mate
According to reporting from Into the Calderon, Atlético needed to raise funds to help finance a move for Cristian Romero, the Tottenham Hotspur centre-back and one of Molina’s Argentina team-mates. Atlético and Tottenham are yet to agree a fee for Romero, with Spurs said to have already rejected one bid and to be holding out for a fee closer to £80 million.
Nothing there is confirmed, but Molina’s sale reads as preparation for it rather than a separate decision. Diego Simeone is not expected to bring in a direct replacement at right-back. Marcos Llorente and Marc Pubill, two of Spain’s World Cup winners this summer, are set to cover the position between them, with Academy product Javi Boñar also in the frame after a run of solid performances in the Spanish top-flight last season.
OFFICIAL: AS Roma have signed right-back Nahuel Molina (28) from Atlético de Madrid for €13.00m on a contract until June 2030.
#ASRoma #SerieA #Transfers
— Transfers247.net (@t247net.bsky.social) 12 August 2026 at 16:21
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Roma have paid a fixed fee of €13 million for Molina, with performance-related add-ons that could take the total to around €17 million, according to reports. He has signed a four-year contract worth a reported €2.7 million a season, returning to Serie A, where he first made his name at Udinese before Atlético paid an initial €10 million to sign him in 2022.
None of this is really about Molina’s form for Argentina, which has not dropped. It is about a club deciding that a player who starts World Cup finals is, at 28, worth less to them than the transfer fee he generates. Best guess is that the Romero deal follows within days and that Atlético end up with a younger, more expensive full-back than the one they just sold.