Serie A clearly had a domestic-player premium at this point.
People later joked about the Premier League's homegrown premium, but Italian players drove up prices too.
No matter how rich you were, your squad still had to be made up of domestic players and foreign imports, and there were limits on foreign-player slots. If you could not buy someone on Maradona's level, then everyone's foreign talent was roughly comparable, and it came down to domestic players in the end.
Excellent domestic players were simply valuable.
Cassano later made an astronomical transfer, but Totti had opened that door ahead of him this time.
Totti's transfer fee looked very high.
But a few years later, Coco's transfer fee alone exceeded twenty million dollars. That was still quite outrageous money in 2001. The Professor brought in several full-backs who were all eventually poached by Manchester City and Chelsea, but buying all of them together had cost less than twenty million, and every one of them developed better than Coco.
Dejan Lu was not worried that the Professor would be unable to persuade players.
Arsenal's style of football was right there for all to see. Players would certainly be tempted.
The Professor's youth development had not yet borne fruit, but his theories were exceptionally strong. He had a proper master's degree, and winning over players and their parents in face-to-face talks came easily to him.
The main issue was money.
If you went to play in the Premier League, even if you were won over by his personal charm and did not demand an outrageous salary, you would still need to match Serie A wages.
That alone put pressure on Arsenal.
The Professor had always maintained very strict wage control, even before building the stadium.
The Premier League did not allow shared player ownership