Geronimo Rulli Returns to Manchester City in £1.7m Deal
Manchester City have turned to a familiar face to bolster their goalkeeping ranks, agreeing a £1.7m deal to bring Argentina international Geronimo Rulli back to the Etihad Stadium from Marseille.
Now 34, Rulli has signed a two-year contract and returns to a club where, on paper, he was once a City player but never truly a City goalkeeper. He spent the 2016-17 season on the books without making a first-team appearance, a footnote in his career that now has the chance to be rewritten.
This is no longer the promising young keeper passing briefly through a complex ownership arrangement. This is a seasoned, decorated veteran walking back through the door.
Rulli arrives with a reputation forged on some of European football’s biggest stages. His most famous night came in the 2021 Europa League final with Villarreal, when he strode up to take a penalty in the shootout against Manchester United, buried it, then denied David de Gea at the other end to seal the trophy in a dramatic, drawn-out climax.
That moment, part goalkeeper, part match-winner, helped crystallise his status as a big-occasion figure rather than just another dependable No. 1.
His CV since leaving City’s orbit the first time is substantial. Rulli has moved around Europe with Real Sociedad, Montpellier, Ajax and Villarreal before his stint at Marseille, collecting experience in Spain, France and the Netherlands, and sharpening a game built on sharp reflexes and calm distribution.
On the international stage, he has broken into one of the most competitive goalkeeping pools in world football. Rulli has eight caps for Argentina and, crucially, has been trusted as part of two title-winning squads under Lionel Scaloni, lifting both the 2022 World Cup and the 2024 Copa America.
He was not the headline act in those triumphs, but he was in the room, in the dressing room, in the pressure. That matters to clubs with ambitions as high as City’s.
For City, this move strengthens a department that demands reliability and personality behind an aggressive, high-line defence. For Rulli, it is the rare second chance at a giant he never really got to play for the first time.
He returns to Manchester older, heavier with medals, and with the kind of scars and stories only years in European football can provide. Now comes the question that will define this chapter: will he finally get the Etihad minutes his career probably earned long ago?
