Wild Rumor: Serie A's Hellas Verona in Talks with Atletico Lanus to Buy Diego Valeri

Silly season is open! Well, it's almost open. It's getting close enough to the transfer window that wild rumors are beginning to crop up everywhere. It's only natural that as the European seasons come to a close, many teams will be looking to retool, or add to their squads in the hopes of bolstering it. For a recently promoted side such as Hellas Verona, finding and securing relatively cheap talent probably ranks pretty high on their list.

And that's where Diego Valeri comes in. According to an often wrong Twitter rumor account by the name of MLS Transfers, Hellas Verona has approached Club Atletico Lanus of Argentina to buy Diego Valeri for $1.3 million. Such a move would, obviously, be bad for Timbers fans who have grown accustomed to Valeri's creativeness in the midfield... if it were true.

That said, I'm not sure if such a buyout is even possible under the loan contract that the Portland Timbers have with Lanus. According to Merritt Paulson near the time of his signing, the Timbers' loan deal came with an option to buy at the end of the season. For Hellas Verona to intercept that agreement wouldn't make sense. The Timbers would likely have to pass on the option to buy first.

Additionally, there's been word that a number of extensions are going to be announced very soon. With this recent rumor cropping up, I highly expect that the Timbers will announce that they've outright bought Diego Valeri.

As always, however, this is just a rumor. So take it with a huge grain of salt because it's probably not true.

What would you think about Hellas Verona buying Diego Valeri?