Bayer Leverkusen have completed the signing of Miguel Gutiérrez from Napoli, with the move confirmed on 5 August 2026. The Spanish left-back has cost Leverkusen a guaranteed fee of around €26m, with add-ons that could push the total package to roughly €30m. The 25-year-old has signed a contract running to June 2031 and will wear the number 3 shirt at the BayArena.
The move makes Gutiérrez the direct replacement for Alejandro Grimaldo, who left Leverkusen for Atlético Madrid earlier in the summer in a deal worth around €22m. Leverkusen's managing director Simon Rolfes said the club had identified Gutiérrez as their priority target, calling him "a skilled and attack-minded defender who fits well with our team." Leverkusen are understood to have tracked Gutiérrez since his days in Real Madrid's academy and picked him ahead of alternatives such as Facundo Medina, prioritising a left-back who can offer a genuine attacking threat down the flank - the role Grimaldo made his own during Leverkusen's unbeaten Bundesliga title season in 2023-24. Gutiérrez joins fellow summer arrival Afonso Moreira as competition on the left of a defence being reshaped under head coach Kasper Hjulmand, who took over from the sacked Erik ten Hag last September.
For Napoli, the sale is shrewd business on the balance sheet - they paid Girona around €20m for Gutiérrez only twelve months ago, so this deal brings a clear profit inside a year - but it does thin out Antonio Conte's options at left-back. Gutiérrez spent just one season in Naples, during which Napoli finished as Serie A runners-up behind an Inter Milan side that won the double, a year after Conte had led Napoli to the title themselves. With Gutiérrez gone, Napoli are expected to lean on Leonardo Spinazzola on the left side of defence, alongside Giovanni Di Lorenzo at right-back.
Gutiérrez made 36 appearances in all competitions for Napoli last season, 28 of them in Serie A, contributing one goal and one assist as he started 15 league games and came off the bench in another 13. That followed three years at Girona, where he built his reputation as one of La Liga's most productive attacking full-backs, racking up five goals and 16 assists in 98 appearances and helping the Catalan club reach the Champions League for the first time in their history.
At Leverkusen, Gutiérrez steps into a system that has relied on attacking full-backs to overload wide areas, the job Grimaldo did so effectively before his switch to Atlético. His output at Girona points to a player comfortable getting forward and combining with wingers, while his season at Napoli showed he can also operate in a more disciplined, defensively sound team. Whether he starts immediately for Hjulmand or shares the position with Moreira, Leverkusen have added a proven, attack-minded option on the left side of their defence heading into the new season.