ESPN analyst shocked by PSV’s “low asking price”: “On this stage, your market value…”

Football-loving Netherlands is still recovering from the draw against Japan, but in the meantime the transfer talk surrounding Ismael Saibari is continuing as usual. The Moroccan PSV player is well on his way to FC Bayern, which has reached an agreement with PSV for a multi-million-euro sum.

And that is where many people feel the shoe pinching, as is also the case with Hans Kraay Junior. ESPN analyst enjoyed Ismael Saibari during Sunday night’s World Cup match between Morocco and Brazil (1-1). The analyst suggests that the transfer fee PSV will probably receive for the midfielder this summer is too low. Does Kraay have a point, or is it being strongly exaggerated?

Saibari broke through in the night from Saturday to Sunday as Morocco played against Brazil. The PSV player operated as a pure striker and shone through with strong play and a goal. This is Saibari to the core, because for months now he has been deployable everywhere as an all-rounder and he has been strong and decisive everywhere as well.

FC Bayern München is going to pay 55 million euros including bonuses for the Moroccan, but that is still really considered too little on both sides. Kraay therefore doesn’t understand it either, while 55 million is of course a considerable amount of money for a player from the Eredivisie.

“He’s also damn quick, huh!”, Kraay Jr. said Sunday evening at ESPN. “I know he’s good with the ball, that he can play a ball through, that he has good technique, that he has a nose for goal… But he sprints in the first ten meters right past two excellent central defenders from Brazil,” the analyst explains Saibari’s goal. “I think he’s so great.”

Presenter Milan van Dongen then pulls up a message on social media from Ivan Perišić. After Morocco - Brazil, the Croat reacted on Instagram with ‘70M + 10M bonus’ to indicate, in his view, Saibari’s transfer value. “Perišić is completely right. On this stage, your market value…”, says Kraay junior about the upcoming transfer of Saibari to FC Bayern.

Kraay junior then draws the parallel with Oranje international Jan Paul van Hecke, who is on the shortlist to swap Brighton & Hove Albion for at least seventy million euros for Tottenham Hotspur. “I also think Van Hecke is a very good player, but 70 million for…”, says the analyst with the necessary astonishment in his voice. 

“If you put those two players next to each other, it’s still very strange that they have the same value,” Van Dongen responds. Kraay junior adds: “They’re in different positions, but €70 million for Van Hecke?", it sounds full of question marks.