Former Liverpool goalkeeper, Loris Karius, swapped Anfield for Newcastle United and St James’ Park during the 2022 summer transfer window as a free agent, but to date the 30 year old German youth international has only made one appearance for them, a 2-0 defeat to Manchester United back in February of this year in the EFL Cup.
Despite being named as an option in both manager Eddie Howe’s Premier League, and Champions League squads for this year, Karius’s game time is again going to be limited, as at best, he is third choice behind Nick Pope and Martin Dubravka, and this weekend he revealed that he could soon take up an Italian Serie A proposal as his next move – simply so that he was back closer to his family.
With one game under his belt at Newcastle (200 appearances across his career so far), he is now into the second year of his deal at the club, but given his relative lack of game time in the English Premier League, he is probably strangely far more known in Italy, albeit a big reason for that is his partner, Diletta Leotta, who is naturally a very well known TV presenter in the country and based in Milan. It is one of the reasons why a potential move to Serie A has been regularly raised with the player in more recent years, and their distance is obviously a talking point, and more so now in fact, as their profile went up a bit more when at the end of last month as they welcomed their first child, a girl they have named Aria.
Speaking recently to Corriere della Sera, he explained.
“It is a possible solution, which I consider. It could happen in the future. As a child I followed Inter, Milan and Juve matches on TV. But I don’t want to move only based on Aria and Diletta. I’m waiting for a good job opportunity. Most of the time we are distant, of course. We talk a lot on the phone, we make video calls with FaceTime. Diletta comes to visit me as soon as she can, but it’s not easy. Our plan is to be together for the rest of our lives.”
Given the timing of this interview, there is a sense of irony in the fact that Newcastle are in Milan this coming Tuesday, as they face AC in the Champions League group stage opener at the San Siro.
It seems almost inevitable that at some point Karius will end up in Italy, but the biggest question is with which domestic club, but there are bound to be a few suitors you would imagine.
