It appears that Barcelona will lose Vitor Roque and Ilkay Gundogan within the next few days, if not hours, as both players are apparently close to leaving.
As if facing off against Real Madrid and the recently acquired Kylian Mbappé wasn’t challenging enough, Hansi Flick’s Barcelona team is losing players.
One year after leaving the reigning champions to begin a new chapter in Spain, Gundogan looks certain to be heading back to Manchester City. Barcelona may have to shorten that due to its need to reduce its payroll, which would mean losing one of its best players from the previous campaign.
According to reports, Roque is also on the verge of joining Real Betis on loan, despite inquiries from Portugal’s Sporting. Barcelona had to pay 30-million euros ($33-million) for the teenage forward from Brazil last summer. Despite the large sum of money paid to sign him, he never garnered regular playing time after entering the winter transfer market.
It will be confirmed when their departures become official that the club’s attempts to bolster the squad throughout the summer were only band-aid fixes.
Barcelona didn’t spend a lot of money last summer to retain the caliber of a team that lost seasoned captains Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets. Oriol Romeu moved from Girona for a reported 4 million euros, Gundogan and former Athletic Bilbao defender Íñigo Martínez arrived as free agents, and João Félix and João Cancelo arrived on loan from Atletico Madrid and Manchester City, respectively.
However, after a year, only Martínez seems likely to stay on with the team that didn’t win a championship the previous season and lost coach Xavi Hernández, who was fired for openly criticizing the club’s lack of funding, saying it would be difficult to compete with Madrid or the other elite European teams.
Barcelona has secured the signing of Leipzig’s Dani Olmo, a midfielder from Spain, but it has not yet complied with the Spanish league’s financial conditions to register him for play.
Important players Ronaldo Araújo and Gavi Páez are also out for Flick because to leg ailments they are healing from.
Flick hasn’t thought twice about depending largely on the graduates of Barcelona’s renowned La Masia development system when players get injured or go. In their highly demanding match against Valencia in the Spanish league opener, when Robert Lewandowski scored a brace to lead his team to a 2-1 victory, he handed midfielders Gerard Martín and Marc Bernal their debuts. Between Bernal, Pau Cubarsí, and Lamine Yamal, Flick started his starting eleven with three 17-year-olds in total.
“We can win games with these youngsters,” Lewandowski remarked following the victory.
Next examination
When Barcelona visits Athletic Bilbao, which includes Nico Williams, in the second round of league play on Saturday, it will put itself to the test.
Spain won the European Championship this summer thanks in part to the efforts of Williams and Barcelona teenager Lamine Yamal. Williams’ transfer from Athletic had been believed to intrigue Barcelona, but considering the Catalan club’s current financial difficulties, that seems like wishful thinking.
Ernesto Valverde, the former manager of Barcelona, will be coaching Athletic, which is hoping to win at Barcelona for the first time since the 2001–2002 campaign. Since then, Barcelona has won 19 of the 22 meetings without a victory.
Álex Padilla, goalkeeper for Athletic’s youth team, will probably have to start for the Copa del Rey-winning club after minor injuries to Spain’s Unai Simón and backup Julen Agirrezabala.
Sunday, Madrid welcomes Valladolid, following the reigning champions’ 1-1 draw in Mallorca.