In the last hours of the transfer market, which closes next Friday at midnight, Barça is all up in the air. Something very ‘Laportiano’. The template is still incomplete for the concern of Xavi, who does not have everything they asked for (I cancel, the right-back, has not yet arrived) nor has he seen the players he wanted come out. And in the center of the stage the figure of Ansu Fatiformerly “club heritage”, as Xavi described it, now an expendable piece, an object of desire for Tottenham, among other clubs.
Few hours left. Time is running out and the money from the new sale of assets does not arrive, exposing the president Joan Laporta to having to endorse personally as last season, as announced by the newspaper Sport. And that endorsement could even be extended to a large majority of the board.
And all because decisions that haven’t been made before must be expedited now. Only three league games have passed, more than enough time, however, for some players to detect the negative landscape they would face if they stayed.
Behind Lamine and Raphinha
ok for Ansu, who at 20 years old has lost ownership. Not even Dembélé’s departure has changed the landscape. First, Raphinha, in whom Xavi trusted, and now Lamine Jamal, the new sensation of the culé universe, they have passed him by. Even Ferran Torres even. Also linked to another problem. Xavi’s tactical drawing, which maintains its commitment to four midfielders, leaves only two chairs for forwards.
Lewandowski he has his name stamped on one and the other is a matter of debate between Raphinha and Lamine. Ansu? At the moment, she is not on the coach’s roadmap, so the thesis of Jorge Mendes, his agent, has been prevailing in the last hours. A departure would be the best path for the youngster whom the club used two summers ago. The same club that now does not see him as a pillar of the project.
From Leo’s ’10’ to expendable
They gave him Messi’s 10 – he never asked for it – and they invested him, despite his youth (he was 18 years old), with the sporting power of the team. Power that he has disappeared laminated by so much injury -up to four visits to the operating room-, that they have broken him on the field and, of course, emotionally.
The market is agitated. And Ansu thinks about it. In June she did not want to leave. “Ansu is going to be the Ballon d’Or,” his representative even said, denying his departure at the time. At the end of this course there is one tournament left (Euro 2024) and he needs to play continuously to continue being part of the plans of the Spanish team. If they don’t give it to him at Barça, he must look for it abroad.
England, a country that Mendes manages thanks to his excellent contacts, could be the new stop for the striker to whom Barcelona surrendered a couple of summers ago when Messi undertook, much to his regret, the trip to Paris.
Joao Felix, waiting
If Ansu leaves, he could have a domino effect for the arrival of Joao Félix, the wayward Atlético player, also represented by Mendes, whose loan to Chelsea last year was painful. Meanwhile, Cancelo has been waiting for days, we would say months, waiting for the final call from Barça to become the right-back that Xavi asks for, demands and, above all, needs.
Although, in reality, it is, once again, Mendes, also an agent of the Portuguese defender, who is weaving the transfer agreement with Manchester City trying to bury the diplomatic conflict last winter.
The last moments of a market where Barça have made four signings are being lived, but they can only use three. Iñigo Martínez arrived at zero cost from Athletic; Ilkay Gundogan, too; Oriol Romeu cost 3.4 million euros, the amount of his clause in Girona. The fourth is, curiously, the most expensive and the one that cannot be used: he paid 30 million plus 31 in variables for Vitor Roque, the young Brazilian striker who must stay in his country.
Xavi tries to convince Eric not to leave
This is how Deco walks, the new sports director who brings together all the power after the convulsive and little explained departure of Mateu Alemany in the middle of the market. With everything to do. With Eric García knocking on the door of Xavi’s office asking to leave the club because he has detected, like Ansu, that if he stays he will play little, having become the fifth center-back in the squad after Araujo (now injured), Koundé, Christensen and the newcomer Iñigo Martínez.
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Eric wants to feel important and he knows that in Montilivi there is a coach –Míchel- who can give him everything he cannot find in Montjuïc. But Xavi doesn’t want to lose the defender. Abde is in the same situation because they tell him that he will play, but that is not the case: substitute in Getafe (he played 45 minutes of the second half), substitute against Cádiz (22 minutes) and substitute against Villarreal (did not play a single minute).
The market clock does not stop, while the Barça squad continues to be as indefinite as it was a few weeks ago, to Xavi’s concern.