Some deals look like a steal until you read the small print. Michael de Leeuw's switch from Lanús to Cherkasy is one of them — and six months on, the receipts tell a brutal little story about chasing an ageing striker.

The numbers first, because they do the heavy lifting. Lanús bought de Leeuw from Romanian second-tier Alba Iulia for 5,305,011 SVC in July 2025. As Season 3 ticked over at one minute past midnight on 3 January 2026, they let him go to Cherkasy for 1,010,002 SVC — recorded a quarter of an hour into the new campaign. That's barely a fifth of what they paid. A 4.3 million SVC hole, closed in the time it takes to make a cup of tea.

Why Lanús pulled the plug

This wasn't a flop being binned. De Leeuw actually earned his keep in Argentina: 31 league games, 8 goals and an assist in ARG Division 1, plus two more in continental play and a standout cup run (three games, two man-of-the-match nods, an 8.67 average). For a 38-year-old, that's a proper season's work.

The problem is what happens to a 38-year-old's resale value the moment the calendar flips. De Leeuw carried a 79 rating through his Lanús season; at the Season 3 reset his overall dropped eight points to 71, and the club moved within minutes. Age doesn't negotiate, and Lanús clearly weren't waiting around to find out how the next year went.

You can see the plan in their chequebook. Within nine days of cashing in the Dutchman, Lanús spent 7.28M SVC on Michele Castagnetti; a month after that, 11.64M SVC on Cristian Tarragona. The de Leeuw money — and a lot more besides — went straight back into younger legs. This was a squad recycling an asset it had wrung dry, not a panic sale.

Cherkasy bought the dip — and missed

For a modest Ukrainian top-flight side — fanbase under 2,600, a 10,000-odd seat ground — a million SVC on an experienced forward was a genuine punt on know-how. It didn't land. De Leeuw gave Novellino's side 26 league outings and 5 goals at a flat 6.54 average, and by 27 April he was gone again, sold to Italian second-division Crotone for 301,999 SVC.

That's less than a third of what Cherkasy had paid him a hundred-odd days earlier — a 708,003 SVC loss in under four months. The middle link in the chain turned out to be the most expensive place to stand.

The only winner wore Romanian colours

Step back and the whole arc is a lesson in timing. Leeuwarden sold de Leeuw to Alba Iulia for 186,367 SVC in January 2025. He banged in 15 goals in 34 games in ROU Division 2 — and Alba Iulia flipped him to Lanús for that 5.3M figure, a profit of more than 28 times their outlay. Everybody downstream of that trade lost money. The provincial Romanian side took the lot.

Today de Leeuw is 39, fit again after a spring injury, and turning out for Crotone in Italy's second tier, where he has 1 goal in 15. The game now values him at just 154,333 SVC — a number that has been falling like a stone ever since that 5.3M peak.

Where it leaves them

Neither club is hurting for it. Lanús sit sixth in ARG Division 1 with 27.3M SVC in the bank and have since banked monster fees, shipping Nahuel Losada (14.37M) and Brian Luciatti (11.98M) to Bournemouth in June alone. The de Leeuw write-down is a rounding error to a side that trades at this volume.

Cherkasy, eighth in UKR Division 1 and nudging up the table, still carry a healthy 22.0M SVC balance — but their dabble in the experience market is the cautionary tale here. When you pay a premium for a striker on the wrong side of 38, the only question is how big the haircut will be when you sell. For Cherkasy, the answer was 70%, and quickly.

The transfer's done. The lesson lingers: in this market, an old forward off a rating spike is a melting ice cube — and the club holding it when the season turns is the one that pays.