Cross Mario Goetze Off Your Shopping List

You take Mario Goetze off of your summer shopping list. The 19-year-old Borussia Dortmund midfielder's had an injury plagued 2011/12 campaign, but his raw skills are undeniable and he was a major factor in BVB earning the Bundesliga crown in the previous season - he's done enough in his young career to set off the collective radars of Europe's big guns. That includes Chelsea, and the Blues have been connected to the German for what seems like forever now.

As I'm sure you can imagine, we'd have been really rather happy if somehow the Blues had managed to persuade Dortmond to let him go (and him to come to Stamford Bridge). But that's not on the cards anymore - Goetze has just signed a new deal with BVB, one that will keep him at the Westfalenstadion for another four years. Perhaps he's learned from the fate of Nuri Sahin at Real Madrid!

I quite like seeing deals like this, actually. For all that we're fans of a 'big' team capable of snapping up superstars it's great to see clubs bring young athletes through the ranks and keep them around through their prime years. If this sort of thing happens more often, it can only be good for football as a whole. It won't, because of the money involved, but still.