Dragusin has a new club, joining Fiorentina on loan from Tottenham Hotspur, with the Serie A side reported to have agreed a deal that includes an obligation to make the move permanent rather than a straightforward option. Sporting director Fabio Paratici, who previously worked at Tottenham, is understood to have driven the move.
The 24-year-old Romanian moved to Tottenham from Genoa two and a half years ago in a deal worth €28m, and now returns to Italian football after a spell in the Premier League that never really got going.
Dragusin struggled to establish himself in Tottenham's starting XI and then suffered a serious ACL injury that kept him sidelined for close to 11 months, limiting him to just five Premier League starts last season.
RB Leipzig had also been keen on the defender, but it is Fiorentina who have won the race for his signature.
Reports on the structure of the deal vary slightly, with the obligation to buy said to be worth somewhere between €17.5m and €25m depending on Dragusin reaching a set number of appearances, on top of an initial loan fee. Tottenham are also understood to have retained a sell-on clause worth 10% of any future profit Fiorentina make on the player.
The move gives Dragusin a fresh opportunity to rebuild his career away from north London, with Fiorentina viewing him as a squad addition capable of adding experience and physicality to their backline.
He arrived at Tottenham with a big reputation, having previously turned down interest from Bayern Munich to move to the Premier League, but was unable to dislodge the club's established centre-back pairing even before injury further disrupted his progress.
Should the obligation to buy be triggered at the end of the loan, it would bring a permanent end to a Tottenham spell that never quite delivered the impact expected when he first arrived from Genoa, while giving Dragusin a return to the familiar surroundings of Serie A, where he made his name before his move to England.