Opened Xavi this Monday the door of his office and Barça announced a couple of signings, made for several months. They are middle-class signings, the one that should serve to balance a squad in which there was an excessive generational distance between the sacred cows (Busquets, Alba, Pique)exhausting their last steps, and the exciting young people (Ansu, Pedri, Gavi, Araujo...), forced to lead the reconstruction. Kessiea midfielder who goes beyond the muscle that radiates from his powerful figure, and Christensena seasoned and elegant central defender, fit into that essential middle class that Xavi’s new Barça requires.
Not even three hours of difference existed between the announcement of the Ivorian player and that of the Danish defender. They both have much more in common than you think. They arrive at zero cost (Barça has not paid a euro to Milan for Kessié nor to Chelsea for Christensen), endowed with the necessary international experience to increase the competition in the squad. Not only that.
They are basic pieces to enter into the rotation policy that the coach wishes to implement in this course, where the celebration of the World Cup (starts in mid-November and ends in mid-December), compresses the calendar even more. They are practically the same age: Christensen turned 26 on April 10 and Kessié will reach that same figure on December 19.
make up template
They do not appear as pillars of the new project (Lewwandowski and Koundé, for example, do fit perfectly for Xavi in that definition), but they are two key elements. Keys because they give the coach much more resources and because in the forced austerity policy that Barça manages after the waste of the ‘Bartomeu era’ they suppose an injection of talent and quality to raise the level of an unbalanced squad.
Christensen, Blaugrana ends in 2026
– FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona_cat) July 4, 2022
In addition, Barça, if you look at the market value of both players (Kessié’s, according to the specialized website Transfermarkt, is 45 and Christensen’s, 35), can argue that it gets rid of investing 80 million to bring them. These are, or should be, soccer players with immediate performance, whom the coach must find accommodation instantly since it would allow the coach to shake up the old and worn-out hierarchies of the group.
And Riqui Puig appeared
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Waiting to be able to work with them (Kessié will be presented tomorrow and Christensen on Thursday), Xavi has already put on his tracksuit to lead the first training session. He worked this Monday with a heterogeneous group of 23 footballers, which also contained some surprises, such as the unexpected presence of Riqui Puig, whom the coach had given one more week of vacation to go looking for a new destination because he does not count with the. But the youth squad went through the sports city, like Neto, another one who does not enter the plans because the club would thus save his high record and would leave room for the return of Iñaki Peña.
A heterogeneous group because the border between first-team players and Barça Atlètic players is not very well defined, as is already the case with Collado, who has returned from his loan to Granada, or Iñaki Peña himself, having finished his time at Galatasaray. Trincao and Pjanic also trained, players who are not strategic for Xavi, happy, yes, to see Ansu and Pedri, at last, together on the pitch. If they are fine, they are the best news for the coach, who is eager to have Lewandowski and Koundé.