Donny van de Beek of Manchester United. Fabián Ruiz of Napoli. Lorenzo Pellegrini of Roma. All three players have been linked to moves to the Camp Nou in the last week, but none of them are entirely realistic. Looking at the other moves this summer, including Sergio Agüero, Eric García, and the soon-to-be-announced Memphis Depay, maybe we should believe them when they say FC Barcelona doesn’t have the money to spend on transfers. Player swaps is an idea that is thrown out to sell papers, but rarely do those transactions actually take place. The likelihood of a player swap drops as the importance of that player increases, Ousmane Dembélé as an example.
Let’s try this again, but for centre-backs. Aymeric Laporte of Manchester City. Matthijs de Ligt of Juventus. Lisandro Martínez of Ajax. Again, none of these names are likely. Even the rumor that seemed to pick up the most steam, the one concerning Laporte, has had water thrown all over it by the player himself.
Apparently Laporte did have time between Spain’s 0-0 draw with Sweden and preparing for Poland to respond on his own behalf. At this point he was being linked to the club by the local Catalan papers enough times for fans to believe that there was something to it. The names rarely matter unless you’ve heard them 100 times, so Laporte and his agent were likely trying to get ahead of the wave of rumors before it affected any negotiations with Manchester City. Agents often use “interest” or at least perceived interest from FC Barcelona to get a better deal, but in the case of Laporte, that tactic doesn’t always work.
It’s only the third week of June, and even though Barcelona has made somewhere between two and four moves (not yet counting Depay and Emerson), the rumors are just beginning. But for Culers that have been around the block before, you know that the names don’t matter as much as the position does. The sliver of truth in these rumors is likely the position on the field that the Catalans are trying to reinforce. Georginio Wijnaldum interest was real, and the search for an industrial midfielder with a well-rounded skillset that shades towards the defensive side is probably the whole truth. It’s why the notion that Nico González could be the successor to Sergio Busquets has already been floated out into the world – that’s the back-up plan if Barcelona can’t find their man.
Aymeric Laporte could very well be wanted by the Blaugrana. The truth though is that they are looking for suitors for Samuel Umtiti and even Clement Lenglet, and Ronald Koeman feels most comfortable playing a left-footed centre-back on the left. The number of top level centre-backs who can play that line-breaking ball with their left foot is a short one. The number is almost zero when you consider the price that Barcelona are willing to pay. They need to find a player that is willing to upset his current club and force his way out to get to the Camp Nou at a discount.
The reinforcements that we expected for months are already on the way, but the recent weeks of transfer rumors indicate that the club is still sniffing around for a midfielder and a centre-back. The two questions that remain – is that player out there and available and does Barcelona have the resources to get him?
Dan Hilton is an American journalist, broadcaster, and current Editor-in-Chief of BarcaBlog. Extensive work as a play-by-play broadcaster, producer behind the scenes, and quite average player in his younger years has given him a well-rounded and informative perspective on the sport. Alongside BarcaBlog founder Francesc, Dan started The Barcelona Podcast in 2017
