West Ham and Everton will have to wait until the summer to move for Sheraldo Becker with Union Berlin refusing to allow a January exit amid their ongoing search for Champions League football.
The Budesliga-based outfit currently finds itself second in the German top-flight – rather remarkably only a single point behind Julian Nagelsmann’s Bayern Munich at the top of the table.
“Both West Ham and Everton are interested in Sheraldo Becker. We’ve just had it confirmed that Union received a concrete offer on Monday, though it’s not immediately clear which of the two submitted it,” Christian Falk exclusively informed CaughtOffside.
“Union, however, now have a chance to potentially secure Champions League football next year and they’re still in the cup, so that’s why they were reluctant to sell Sheraldo.
“But in the summer they know they could lose him. He’s got a contract that runs until 2025. I could imagine seeing him switch to the Premier League in the summer.”
Whilst few fans will likely be seriously dreaming of a first title for Union in their entire history, there’s a very real prospect of the side securing top European football for the 2023/24 campaign if they can stay true to their current course.
That will, of course, be reliant on Urs Fischer’s retaining their top-performing talents, as they have done with Becker who’s managed to accumulate 15 goal contributions in 27 games (across all competitions) so far this season.
Given the club lost former hitman Taiwo Awoniyi in the summer to Nottingham Forest, their path to the top four is certainly all the more sensational.
Should the Suriname international keep up his stellar form through to the end of the campaign and secure Union Champions League football, one can imagine interest in his services may extend beyond the likes of West Ham and Everton.