Exequiel Zeballos: From Boca Juniors to Monza in Serie A

Exequiel Zeballos was supposed to be walking out at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium in blue. Instead, he landed in Milan wearing Monza red, the twist in his transfer saga underlining just how quickly a European move can change course.

Napoli had lined him up as a sharp attacking signing, personal terms agreed and a role mapped out. Then Boca Juniors slammed the door. The Argentine giants turned down an offer worth around €10m plus add-ons, and the deal that once looked inevitable simply evaporated.

Monza moved into the gap.

With Zeballos’ contract at Boca due to expire on December 31, the Serie A upstarts pounced on deadline day, striking a far cheaper agreement. The Italian club are believed to have paid around €4m for 60 per cent of his rights, with Boca smartly holding on to the remaining 40 per cent of any future sale. For a club used to exporting talent, it is a bet that this is not the last time Zeballos’ name appears on a transfer document.

The 24-year-old touched down in Italy and, still processing the whirlwind, stopped to speak at Milan airport.

“It all happened so fast, I will speak with coach Ivan Juric today,” he said, outlining just how compressed the final hours of the window had been.

The choice of country, though, had a deeper root. “I wanted to come to Italy because my father's idol is Maradona.”

That line explains a lot. Zeballos grew up in Buenos Aires under the shadow of Boca’s legends and Argentina’s greatest icon. Now he starts his European journey not in Naples, the city that worships Maradona, but with Monza, a club trying to carve out its own space in Serie A.

The move did not come without counsel from within Boca’s own dressing room. Leandro Paredes, who knows Italy inside out from his spells at Roma and Juventus, played a quiet but influential role when Zeballos weighed up the Napoli talks.

“It's true, Paredes gave me a lot of advice, especially when we were talking about Napoli,” Zeballos admitted. The path closed, but the guidance remains as he prepares for a different Italian challenge.

On the pitch, Monza are getting a wide attacker who can operate on either flank, comfortable hugging the touchline or driving inside. Across 140 competitive games for Boca Juniors, Zeballos produced 16 goals and 16 assists, numbers that hint at end product but also at a player still with room to grow.

He leaves behind the noise of La Bombonera, the Copa Libertadores nights like that tense group clash with Cruzeiro at Estadio Alberto J. Armando, and steps into a new world: tighter stadiums, tactical battles, and the unforgiving rhythm of Serie A.

Napoli slipped away. Monza did not. Now the question is simple: in a league that has made and broken South American talents for decades, can Exequiel Zeballos turn this unexpected detour into the career move that defines him?