Barca new president Joan Laporta’s immediate task is to offload as many players as possible so as to enable the Camp Nou to nourish some of the promising talents that emerged from La Masía.
Before the Blaugranas can think of hiring new players, their new president has been adamant about their need to offload some of their current footballers ASAP, with the latest report by Spanish newspaper El Confidencial revealing the names of four first-team players that are set to leave the club by the end of the season due to Los Culés’ dire financial needs. The report states that these players will leave the club in order to keep some of the team’s young talents around.
The report suggests that Antoine Griezmann, Samuel Umtiti, Pedro Trincao, and Philippe Coutinho will end up leaving the club to help end its ailing finances. Coutinho and Griezmann are expected to bring in quite a bit of cash to the club’s coffers, while Umtiti and Trincao could end up being transferred or included in other types of deals.
Players identified as key to the team’s future are Ilaix Moriba, Ansu Fati, Pedri González, and goalkeeper Marc-André Ter Stegen. Unsurprisingly of course, Laporta has re-emphasized his desire to keep Lionel Messi around as the cornerstone of this “new” Barcelona, with the younger brood of players groomed to be ready to carry on with his legacy once he retires.
Additionally, these moves by Laporta would be accompanied by extensive wage adjustments to most of the players that remain at Camp Nou, with the main idea being to re-think some of those wages for players who have not stepped up during crunch games, such as the UEFA Champions League eliminations against Liverpool or Bayern Munich.
Under the once gloriously-proven capable leadership of their reinstalled president, Barcelona are about to take their first steps into the new era with guarded optimism, eager to leave behind difficult times. But, hopeful though the new scenario promises to be, some heavy sacrifices need to be made almost immediately before aspirations to hire the likes of Erling Haaland or Kylian Mbappé can become a reality.