REAL MADRID · TRANSFERS
Real Madrid sign Arianna Caruso until 2030 and can still register her for Ajax
The Italy midfielder arrives from Bayern Munich, where she had two years left on her contract. UEFA allows two late additions to a third qualifying round squad list, so Real Madrid can still pick her in Amsterdam on Wednesday.
Real Madrid have signed Arianna Caruso on a four-year deal.
The club announced the agreement with Bayern Munich on Monday: the Italy international is under contract in Madrid until 30 June 2030. Neither club has disclosed the fee.
Caruso’s Bayern deal ran to 2028. She had joined on loan from Juventus in February 2025 and, four months later, the German champions triggered their option and signed her permanently for three seasons. Madrid have therefore had to reach an agreement to take a player with two years still to run.
She can still play at Ajax
The announcement lands two days before Real Madrid open their season in Amsterdam.
The ordinary deadline for third qualifying round squad lists passed on 20 August. But article 32.10 of the competition regulations allows a club to add up to two more players afterwards.
That window closes at 23:59 the day before the first leg — Tuesday 25 August — and it comes with conditions: the Spanish federation has to confirm in writing that she is eligible to play domestically, and the squad limits still apply.
Real Madrid have not said whether the registration is done. Signing her does not mean she travels, but under the rules she can be in the squad to face Ajax.
Goals from midfield
Caruso is 26 and can play across the middle. Bayern, when she arrived, pointed to her defensive work, her quality on the ball and her reading of the game, along with more experience than most players her age.
She started at Res Roma and joined Juventus in 2017, the year the Turin club founded its women’s team. She stayed seven and a half seasons and became captain.
She left as Juventus’s record appearance holder: 237 competitive matches and 60 goals, which still leaves her third on the club’s all-time scoring list behind Cristiana Girelli and Barbara Bonansea.
From 2020/21 until she left she had a hand in 57 goals — 32 scored, 25 assisted. She is not a like-for-like replacement for Caroline Weir, but she is a midfielder who arrives in the box and produces in the final third.
At Bayern the output dropped. Last season she played 19 Bundesliga matches, scored three and set up two, and appeared in ten Champions League games as the club reached the semi-finals.
She won the last two Bundesliga titles with Bayern, plus two cups and two super cups. Those six trophies come on top of 13 at Juventus: six league titles, three cups and four Italian super cups.
An Italy regular
Caruso made her senior Italy debut in 2019 and has played at a World Cup and two Euros.
At Euro 2025 she started all five of Italy’s matches, played every one of their 480 minutes and scored the winner against Belgium on the opening matchday. Italy reached the semi-finals, where England knocked them out with a goal in the last minute of extra time.
She joins a midfield that has lost Weir, Teresa Abelleira and Hanna Bennison this summer, and that had already been rebuilt with Elisa Senß and Andreia Jacinto.
The first look at where Pau Quesada sees her could come on Wednesday. Real Madrid visit Ajax at 19:30 in the first leg of the tie that decides whether they reach the Champions League league phase.
