BARCELONA – Barcelona closes the winter market this Monday without making any additions to its squad for the first time in the last four years, and with the only last-minute move to send Jean-Clair Todibo to the Nice from Benfica, after ruling out the signing of Eric Garcia, for which he fought both the president of the manager Carles Tusquets and the candidate in the election Victor Font and the negotiation with Manchester City could not take place by the refusal of Joan Laporta.
The signing of the young Catalan center will thus be in the hands of the president who emerges from the elections to be held on March 7 and will have, as always defended Laporta and the other candidate, Toni Freixa, l ‘option to incorporate it with the letter of freedom and although since the candidacy of Víctor Font it was considered this Monday a strategic error not to carry out the operation.
In this way, Ronald Koeman will end the season with the same squad that started it, with the exception of Carles Aleñá, who left on loan to Getafe at the beginning of January.
After denying the exit option requested by the Brazilian goalkeeper Net, the club worked until the last minute on the transfer of the Brazilian Matheus Fernandes, who arrived in the summer after his transfer to Valladolid and that since the start of the season he barely played 17 minutes during the Champions League match that Barça beat (0-4) at Dynamo Kiev.
After Barça tried without luck (https://espndeportes.espn.com/AdminMonitor/nota/_/id/7429654/matheus-fernandes-barcelona-koeman-salida) transfer in September, intensified in recent weeks the contacts in sight that Koeman communicated to him that he was not going to have minutes on the first team. Barcelona received some proposals from Brazil, mainly from the Guild, which the player rejected, being only willing to leave the Camp Nou for a transfer to another Spanish club or, in the latter case, agreeing to end the season at Barcelona B. , an option that was ruled out as the subsidiary did not have free tokens.
bounced
Thus, the only operation carried out on the last day of the market by Barcelona was the agreement with Nice for the transfer of Todibo, the adventure at Benfica has been settled with a sovereign failure.
The 21-year-old French center-back has barely played two games for Benfica, burdened at the outset by an injury and from there by the lack of confidence that Jorge Jesús, the team’s coach, to have in him, to the point that weeks ago he wanted to return to Barcelona.
Koeman repeated last Saturday that Todibo was not part of his plans, which the club told the footballer some time ago and in recent days talks have accelerated with Nice, ranked 13th in the French League and in which will play as a transfer to the center until the end of the season.
The agreement between the two clubs stipulates that Nice will take charge of the proportional part of their card until the end of the season and will then have a non-mandatory purchase option of 8.5 million euros fixed which could ascend to 15 with a number of variables. Barça, in addition, would reserve in this case 15 percent of what the French club would enter in a future transfer of player.
TO ZERO, AFTER FOUR YEARS
This will be the first season since 2016-17 in which Barcelona will not add any players to the winter market. The alarming economic crisis of the club and the command of a management board without the ability to decide without the approval of the candidates in the elections have been key in this gap.
Last season, the Barça club incorporated, in February and taking advantage of Dembélé’s long-term absence, Martin Braithwaite, from Leganés, for whom he paid 18 million euros. Jeison Murillo (1.2 million) and Kevin-Prince (Boateng (1 million) arrived at the Camp Nou in January 2019 on loan from Valencia and Sassuolo, while Todibo (1 million) was signed at Toulouse for six months. before ending his contract.
The big expense occurred in January 2018, when Barça signed Colombian Yerry Mina, from Palmeiras and for whom he paid 11.8 million euros, and Philippe Coutinho, from Liverpool and for whom he made an initial disbursement of 120 million euros which with the variables already paid has risen, for the time being, to 145 million.
Of all those mentioned, only Braithwaite and Coutinho remain at the Camp Nou today, although it is no secret that the Barça club would gladly accept offers from both, a demonstration of their lack of success in entering a market of which, sportingly speaking, has yielded no performance.
Prior to that, Barça had not been to the winter market since January 2011, when under Pep Guardiola they paid three million euros to PSV Eindhoven for the signing of Dutchman Ibrahim Afellay. Barça’s performance was also a fiasco, collapsed by injuries