When it comes to Barcelona and summer transfer plans, it’s usually best to start with an important caveat.
If the club are to make signings this summer, they will first need to bring themselves back into line with La Liga’s salary limit and spending rules — which will be no mean feat.
In February, La Liga further cut Barca’s permitted salary limit, from the €648million (£556m; $698m at current rates) of last year to less than half as much — €204m.
Barcelona’s real squad cost for 2023-24 — the total of salaries and transfer amortisations — was officially budgeted at €492million. As they have exceeded their level, La Liga rules say they must make cuts before signing any more players.
Last week, the club’s president Joan Laporta said they were “on the right track” in that regard — and this summer key players may end up being sold.
“La Liga has congratulated us for the effort we have put in order to reduce our wage bill,” Laporta claimed. “We do not have any approval yet, but we will keep pushing until the end of the season to keep improving, and they will decide what we can spend.”
Barcelona’s efforts to improve their financial situation will be covered in more depth by The Athletic elsewhere — but for now, let’s take a glance through some of the names the club are looking at as potential signings.
Despite all the uncertainty, plans are already taking shape to address a priority position: defensive midfield.
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It might not come as a huge surprise that head coach Xavi and his staff see the failure to cover last summer’s departure of Sergio Busquets as one of the big reasons behind their disappointing season. That view is generally shared by Barca’s sporting-director department, led by Deco. For once, the two sections concur on what needs to be their next move in the transfer market.
Xavi and his coaches have drawn up a wish list of players for that position, planning according to the best-case scenario of Barca being able to spend.
At the very top of it, there are two familiar names: Real Sociedad’s Martin Zubimendi and Joshua Kimmich of Bayern Munich. Xavi and his assistants asked for both players last summer, and the fact they got Oriol Romeu for that role in the end is something they have often referred to when qualifying the team’s record in 2023-24.
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Now Romeu is expected to leave again in the coming window, and a return to previous club Girona has strong potential after their coach Michel said he would like to take him back.
Out of Zubimendi and Kimmich, Barcelona sources see the latter as the most likely option to get over the line. They believe Kimmich would have considered a move last year if the club had been in a position to make an offer. Now, with his contract due to expire in the summer of 2025, it is likely a decision will have to be made on his future and if he were to choose not to extend that deal, a sale could make sense for all sides.
Kimmich has been playing at right-back for Bayern and Germany (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
The 29-year-old Germany international will likely not come cheap. The CIES Football Observatory — a research group within the International Centre for Sports Studies in Neuchatel, Switzerland — estimates Kimmich’s value at €40million (£34.3m/$43.1m).
Xavi believes Kimmich would adapt well to the sole holding midfield role, although this is not how he has been used at Bayern by Thomas Tuchel, who sees him as a right-back. This was the main reason Tuchel pushed to sign Fulham’s Joao Palhinha last summer, when a deal collapsed on deadline day after the Portugal international had already travelled to Munich.
It is a similar case with Germany. National team manager Julian Nagelsmann, having already worked with Kimmich at Bayern, has also preferred not to place him in midfield. He instead used Bayer Leverkusen’s Robert Andrich during the last international break, with Kimmich again at right-back.
Zubimendi is also being tracked by Arsenal (Ion Alcoba Beitia/Getty Images)
While Kimmich’s contract situation gives Barcelona hope of negotiating on any transfer fee, with Zubimendi it seems he will probably only be sold if a club matches his €60million release clause. Zubimendi, 25, has also attracted interest from Premier League clubs, so there is a possibility of Barca getting outbid. Earlier this month, The Athletic’s David Ornstein reported Arsenal have a long-standing interest in the Spain international.
On top of that, there’s the question of whether Zubimendi would even entertain the idea of leaving his boyhood club in the Basque Country.
“Playing in Europe would be an incentive to stay in this project for sure, but nothing essential to me for wanting to stay,” Zubimendi said two weeks ago about his future, with La Real currently sixth in La Liga — a spot that would guarantee them a 2024-25 Europa Conference League place.
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“I’m happy at Real Sociedad, this is my home; although I can’t say I will stay here my whole life, maybe there’s a point when the club does not want me here. I don’t know what is going to happen in summer, but rumours do not bother me.”
Those two are Xavi’s preferences but Deco, the sporting director, has his own.
Everton’s 22-year-old Belgium international Amadou Onana was among them, but with the Merseyside club now safe from relegation, the prospect of a deal on terms cheaper than his true valuation is seen as unlikely in Catalonia.
Rodriguez was a member of the Argentina squad that won the World Cup (Jose Luis Contreras/Dax Images/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The other player to be mentioned is Argentina international Guido Rodriguez.
A member of his country’s 2022 World Cup winning squad who turned 30 last month, he is nearing the end of his contract at La Liga side Real Betis and is not expected to sign a new one.
Initial talks with Rodriguez’s camp over a free-agent signing in the summer have been described as positive by club sources. A deal is still far from agreed, but the player was already appreciated by Xavi last year and the coaching staff believe he could play a useful role in the squad.
But Rodriguez’s arrival would only be used to cover for Romeu’s departure as a rotational option and would not change the structural plans of the club to make a significant investment in a starting holding midfielder.
(Top photo: Getty Images)
