Leverkusen replace Grimaldo with Gutierrez, and pay more than they got for him
Leverkusen have signed the Spanish left-back from Napoli on a five-year deal, five weeks after Alejandro Grimaldo left for Atletico Madrid. The reported fee is higher than the one they banked.
Aug 6, 2026
Bayer Leverkusen announced Miguel Gutierrez on Wednesday, five weeks after selling the left-back he was bought to replace. Alejandro Grimaldo went to Atletico Madrid at the end of June for a reported 22 million euros, rising to 25 million with add-ons. Gutierrez has arrived from Napoli on a deal reported at around 30 million.
Neither club put a figure on it. But if the reported numbers are close, the full sequence reads like this: Leverkusen got Grimaldo for nothing in 2023 when his Benfica contract ran out, sold him three years later for 22 million, and have now spent about 30 million on the man who takes his shirt. Free in, profit out, and a bigger bill than either of the first two numbers.
Five years, and a job with a shadow over it
Gutierrez has signed until the summer of 2031. He is 25, turned so at the end of July, and comes with a CV that has moved steadily upward without ever quite settling.
Simon Rolfes, Leverkusen’s sporting director, called him “exactly who we wanted for this position”. Gutierrez, for his part, said he was “really looking forward to the atmosphere in German stadiums”, which is the sort of thing every signing says and which, at Leverkusen, tends to be true.
The complication is who he follows. Grimaldo spent three years there and was central to the unbeaten side that won the Bundesliga and the DFB Cup in 2023-24, a debut season in which he produced 12 goals and 19 assists from left-back. Replacing him is less about filling a position than matching an output, and that output was absurd.
Real Madrid, Girona, one season in Naples
Gutierrez came through Real Madrid’s academy and won the UEFA Youth League in 2020, scoring in the final against Benfica. He made nine senior appearances for the club before leaving for Girona in 2022.
Those three years in Catalonia are what built his reputation. Around 112 appearances, six goals and 19 assists, and a central role in the Girona side that finished third in La Liga on 81 points in 2023-24 and qualified for the Champions League for the first time in the club’s history. He scored in the 4-2 win over Barcelona that sealed it, and was named in the La Liga team of the season.
Napoli paid roughly 18 million euros plus incentives for him last August and gave him a contract to 2030. He played 36 competitive matches in his season there, 28 of them in Serie A, as Napoli finished second on 76 points behind an Inter side that won the title on 87.
One year, then. Napoli bought at 18 and appear to have sold at around 30, which is a tidy piece of business for a club that also got a Champions League campaign out of him along the way. Whether Gutierrez wanted a longer stay in Naples is not something either party has said much about.
What Leverkusen actually need from him
The honest question is whether Leverkusen have bought a left-back or a left-sided attacker who defends. Gutierrez is described by the club as comfortable in advanced roles, and his assist numbers at Girona say the same. That profile is not far off what Grimaldo gave them.
The difference is volume, and the difference is timing. Grimaldo arrived in Germany at 27, already finished as a product: seven and a half years at Benfica, 303 matches, four Portuguese titles. Gutierrez arrives at 25 with one season of a big Italian league behind him and a lot still to prove about handling the job as the answer rather than as the option.
He does not have long to settle in. The Bundesliga season starts on 28 August.