Find a guaranteed replacement for Sergio Busquets. That has been, is and will be Barcelona’s primary mission in this transfer market. Neither find reinforcements for the sides, nor find a new 9 that competes with Robert Lewandowski nor even officially close the long-awaited signing of Ilkay Gündogan. The first step to build the new Barça is none other than to cover the position of 5 and for this the culés have been combing the market for months in search of someone who can act as Busquets, a player who has Barça DNA and who allows keep competing with the biggest.
«Busquets is the best midfielder in the history of Barça, the best my eyes have seen. You have to find a footballer who resembles him because it is key to continue competing. He must be a decisive player, strong to win duels, technical, intelligent and a natural player in that position, “said Xavi Hernández a month ago as soon as it was learned that the Catalan midfielder was leaving Barça.
That day, the player from Badia, at almost 35 years old, packed his bags to leave what has been his home throughout his career, with 718 games behind him and left behind a period problem, that of finding a replacement for someone who has pretty much played it all. His destination will be Inter Miami, as announced on Friday in a peculiar video by the American team, where he will play the next three seasons as published by various media.
And it is that Busquets and Barça have been for 15 years like bread and oil, wine and cheese or beer and tapas. They have been a perfect marriage, difficult to disassociate and now that they are not together it is difficult to find someone to fill that role. That is why Barça has been working for months to find a player who can cover that position on the pitch, but who can also adjust to the battered economic situation that the Catalans have been suffering for several seasons and which now has an impact on the ‘fair play’ ‘ financial.
Within these possibilities there are several names that Mateu Alemany has had saved on the agenda. The Barça football director has Martín Zubimendi or Joshua Kimmich as priorities requested by Xavi. The two players fit perfectly into the profile that the Barca coach requested from the board and that he expressed at a press conference, but both have a huge price obstacle.
Real Sociedad has already transmitted to Barcelona and other clubs that it will not negotiate the player’s departure and has referred to his termination clause, which at this time is 60 million euros. In the case of the Bayern player, he is a fundamental piece for the Bavarian club, he has a clause of 80 million and only an operation in which the Catalans include several footballers as a bargaining chip seems viable, an option that in the case of the club Germano do not see with such bad eyes.
Plan B
Faced with these two complex scenarios, the entity chaired by Joan Laporta is considering other cheaper options to try to fill the gap for Busquets. The most obvious would be to delay Frenkie de Jong to midfield and for the Dutchman to occupy a position in which he has already been useful on many occasions. This possibility is the one that Xavi likes the least, because he considers that the former Ajax player can contribute more in a more advanced role.
The next name is that of Nico González, a player who already knows the house, who would arrive at zero cost and who would have a faster adaptation process. It is an option that is on the table but that would not have the sign of other players like Zubimendi or Kimmich.
Footballers have been falling out of all this pool over the weeks and with the hurricane that has devastated Europe in recent weeks from Arab football. Kanté went to Al-Ittihad with a salary of 25 million euros a year, while Rúben Neves will be the next to pack his bags for Al-Hilal for 55 million and a three-year contract. The Portuguese footballer was one of the favorites of the technical secretariat and had high hopes thanks to the good relationship between the culé club and his representative, Jorge Mendes.
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Mateu Alemany returned from Germany on Thursday with the ‘yes’ of Ilkay Gündogan, who has competed with Barcelona for the next two seasons plus an optional one linked to his performance. «There is a lot of market left; this has just begun,” said the Barça football director as soon as he landed in El Prat, knowing that the arrival of the German is by no means the final goodbye to the search for a substitute guarantee to replace Busquets on the pitch wide.
quality leap
The German international of Turkish origin will join Barcelona with the mission of redounding more if possible in the 4-4-2 that Xavi managed so much last season, especially in important games. With this scheme, the culés felt comfortable in stadiums such as the Santiago Bernabéu or the Metropolitan and forged a solidity that was key for the team to win the League title. To perpetuate this model, Xavi needed guaranteed players in the midfield, who would make a leap in quality and who would allow for a broader rotation along with Pedri, Frenkie de Jong and Gavi, basic in that scheme.
Therefore, the signing of Gundogan does not close the door on the arrival of a pivot, but it does open it for the departure of players who were no longer key for Xavi last season. This is the case of Franck Kessié, whom the coach does not see as a substitute for Busquets and who will face a new obstacle.
Something similar happens with players like Ansu Fati or Ferran Torres, footballers who had more possibilities of participating in the 4-3-3 and who may see their participation diminished due to the proliferation of talent in the midfield, where Barça wants to grow and where The key piece is still missing to continue competing for the titles. The arrival of a replacement for Busquets is a task that is simmering in the offices of the Catalan club. Football is not a market in which the good, beautiful and cheap abound.
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