Signing Zinedine Zidane, the legend of Real Madrid and Juventus, was a goal for Barcelona in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Zidane played at Juventus for 5 years, from 1996 to 2001, before moving to Real Madrid for another 5 years until 2006.

But Zidane remained one of the most skilled French players in history, a target on several occasions for Real Madrid’s eternal rival, Barcelona.

The late Johan Cruyff, the former Barcelona coach, had previously admitted that Zidane almost signed a contract to represent Barcelona in 1996, before moving to Juve, but the dismissal of the Dutch coach and his departure from the Camp Nou stopped the deal.

Cruyff, who is considered the owner of the idea of ​​comprehensive play, coached the Spanish team Barcelona between 1988 and 1996, and succeeded in forming a strong team known as the dream team of the Catalan city.
Cruyff said years ago: “During my work at Barcelona I agreed on new deals with the players in January or February, and I was leading the negotiations myself.”

Cruyff is the first player to win the Ballon d’Or 3 times, surpassing the record at the time in the name of Real Madrid legend Alfredo Di Stefano, who won it twice in 1957 and 1959. With Zidane, I explained to him that our agreement was void, and he thanked me, and that was the end of the story.”

In the same summer, more than a quarter of a century ago, Zizou moved from Bordeaux to the Bianconeri, with whom he won two league titles and qualified twice for the Champions League final and won 3 other titles.

In 2001, Zidane moved to Real Madrid and won with him a League title, the same for the European Champions League, two Spanish Super titles, a European Super title and the Intercontinental Cup.

Zidane won the World Cup and European Nations Cup with France in 1998 and 2000 respectively, and won the World Player of the Year award 3 times, including once as a Real Madrid player in 2003 and the Golden Ball once in 1998.

Chelsea owner Todd Boehly arrived in Barcelona from London on Thursday to meet with the Spanish club’s directors and discuss the departures of Azpilicueta and Marcos Alonso, two of Barcelona’s targets in the transfer window.

The meeting comes before the English side leave on a tour of Asia this Saturday, as all parties want a solution to the situation before they depart.

Negotiations have been delayed considerably by the change of ownership at Chelsea.

The departure of Roman Abramovich and many of his executives have left something of a power vacuum that has led to an impasse in the operations that Barcelona already had underway.

The Catalan giants have had an agreement with both players for some time.

Other Chelsea targets
A number of other players could be included in the talks between the two clubs.

There are rumours about the possibility of Frenkie de Jong, although the Dutchman’s plan is to go to Manchester United, where Ten Hag has been pushing for his arrival.

However, the Blues intend to explore the option, as well as that of Dest and other players

La Liga heavyweights Barcelona are reportedly ready to fork out €10 million to sign 18-year-old Brazilian wonderkid Andrey Santos from Vasco da Gama.
According to a report by Spanish outlet Fichajes, Barcelona will soon table a bid worth €10 million to secure the services of Andrey Santos. The teenage Brazilian wonderkid is also the subject of interest from several other European bigwigs, including Manchester City and Juventus.

Andrey Santos has made quite an impact in age-group football in Brazil, with fans and pundits alike widely regarding him as one of the most promising young midfielders in his homeland. The 18-year-old is a defensive midfielder by trade and has been impressive with his ability to read the game effortlessly.

Santos has also represented Brazil at different age-group levels and currently plies his trade for the under-20 side. And the Brazilian wonderkid has broken into the first-team setup at Vasco da Gama this season, garnering 1017 minutes of game-time across 15 appearances. And Santos’s progress has not gone unnoticed, with several clubs across Europe, including Barcelona, setting their sights on him.

The Catalan giants are renowned the world over for scouring the market in Europe and beyond for the most prodigious talents football has to offer. As for Barcelona’s forays into the Brazilian market, they are heavily linked with Palmeiras prodigy Endrick, who has the world at his feet at 15 years old.

While Barcelona’s focus has primarily been on markets in Spain and the rest of Europe in the last few years, they are not going to forego an opportunity to sign one of Brazil’s most promising young midfielders. The interest in Santos thus makes sense, especially with Sergio Busquets approaching the twilight of his career.

The Blaugrana could soon table a bid to swoop the 17-year-old away from Vasco da Gama. According to Fichajes, Barcelona will submit an offer worth €10 million to land the Brazilian wonderkid, but they will have to fend off stiff competition from Manchester City and Juventus.

SPAIN: Barcelona president Joan Laporta said on Wednesday that Dutch midfielder Frenkie de Jong is not for sale despite rumours of a departure to the Premier League.

De Jong “is a Barca player and unless we have a need or interest in selling him, we don’t want to sell him,” Laporta said as the club unveiled new signing Franck Kessie.

“We know he has offers. If at some moment we were interested, we would consider it, but right now, we’re not selling the player,” Laporta insisted.

De Jong, 25, has been heavily linked with a move to Manchester United and a reunion with former Ajax boss Erik ten Hag, who is preparing for his first season at Old Trafford.

Laporta revealed the club had made an offer to France international Ousmane Dembele, whose contract with Barca expired at the end of June.

“Ousmane is no longer a Barca player, but we made him an offer,” said Laporta. “He hasn’t accepted it yet, but he wants to continue talking.

“We’re going to carry on speaking, at least for now.”

Laporta also acknowledged having lunch with Jorge Mendes, the agent of Portugal superstar Cristiano Ronaldo who is reportedly looking to leave Manchester United.

“We discussed the transfer market in general, but I’m not going to specify if he spoke to me about a player in particular,” said Laporta.

Barcelona has reached an agreement with defender Koundé, 23, and is preparing a generous offer to Sevilla to seal the deal. The Catalan club intends to offer something around 60 million euros (R$ 331 million in the current conversion) to the Blanquirrojos and has already received the news from the Frenchman that he really wants to play for the culé team, as anticipated by journalist Gerard Romero. Negotiation is not easy, but it is treated as crucial by Xavi, who called the player more than three times.

Due to the difficulty of hiring the defender, thanks to Sevilla’s high request, the Barcelona board monitors others – not so preferred by Xavi – for the position. The newspaper ‘Sport’ indicated that the management of the Catalan club is interested in the also French Badiashile. The 21-year-old defender plays for Monaco and shouldn’t cost as much as Jules Koundé. The high cost of Koundé added to the unstable financial phase of Barcelona could heat up the talks between Badiashile and the Culés in the coming weeks, if the negotiations for Koundé do not advance. The idea is to bring another reinforcement to the defense, in addition to the newly hired Andreas Christensen.

The interest that Jules has shown in defending Barcelona, ​​however, could weigh on the player to play for the team this summer – given the interest of other clubs, a little colder, such as Chelsea and Newcastle. It remains to be seen the position of Sevilla, which has not yet received any formal proposal from any of the interested parties (including Barcelona) and may opt for sporting gain in the case of the defender, as he is in a good financial phase.

If they go for Badiashile, in fact, Barcelona will have to hurry, given the competition from Juventus, Atletico Madrid and Sevilla itself. In the first two cases, Frenchman is not treated as a priority and for Sevilla he is seen as a possible replacement for Koundé. But with the recent moves in the transfer market, things could get complicated for Barça, who are slow to take a position on Koundé and his “plan B”.

The Portuguese Bernardo Silva, the Manchester City midfielder, offered his services to Barcelona, ​​​​to join his ranks last January.

And according to Spanish media reports today, Portuguese star Bernardo Silva has once again expressed his desire to leave Manchester City and join Barcelona.

The same reports confirmed that Silva had told his agent Jorge Mendes and Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola of his desire to move to Barcelona.

The newspaper pointed out that Silva wanted to play in the Barcelona shirt since he was a child in Benfica, and when he moved to Monaco and Manchester City.

The newspaper pointed out that Bernardo Silva watched Barcelona officials last winter in Manchester, in order to negotiate the inclusion of his former colleague Ferran Torres, and then boldly informed them that they would consider him and that he wanted to join the Blaugrana.

The newspaper said that the Barcelona delegation dealt with the situation with just a joke by the Portuguese star, because his speech was short, but after a few days, a Barca official found a message on his phone from Silva telling him that he wanted to go to Barcelona and was ready to sign contracts.

The newspaper indicated that this file had entered into seriousness, and Jorge Mendes, the agent of Bernardo Silva, the Manchester City midfielder, Joan Laporta, Barcelona president, Deputy Rafa Yusti and sporting director Matteo Alemani, informed that the Manchester City star already wants to move to Barcelona.

Spanish journalist Gerard Romero, who specializes in Mercato news, revealed that Barcelona managed to settle the deal to sign a high-class offensive deal in the current summer Mercato.

According to what was published by journalist Gerard Romero, a specialist in the transfer market, Barcelona succeeded in resolving the deal for the Brazilian international player Rafinha, the sniper of the English team Leeds United.
Romero had indicated that Barcelona had made a new offer for about 60 million euros to settle the Brazilian wing deal.

The famous journalist explained that Barcelona agreed with Rafinha on the personal terms of his contract; He will get 6 million euros annually.

Romero stressed that Rafinha had rejected an offer during the last days of Newcastle United.

Rafinha was also a target for Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea during the current transfer market, but Barcelona put the Brazilian international on top of its priorities during the current summer transfer window.

Rafinha joined Leeds in the summer of 2020 from Rennes, France, for 17 million euros.

The Brazilian international scored 17 goals and assisted 12 goals in 67 matches since his move to Leeds United.

Barcelona officially announced the start of the club’s summer transfer season this season, with the signing of Danish defender Andreas Christensen and Ivorian Frank Kessie.

Barcelona is taking a new approach so far, which is trying to contract with the needs of the team so that these players move freely, without paying amounts to their clubs, due to the financial crisis that the Catalan club is going through.

Barcelona’s preparations for the new season began, with the team’s players returning to the training center after the end of the summer vacation.

The Catalan team will make a summer tour in the United States of America this July, which will include a group of friendly matches in Miami and New York.

Barcelona used to travel to the United States during the preparation periods, but he has not been able to be there since the preparation period for the 2019-2020 season, due to the Corona pandemic.

Barcelona will play friendly matches against Inter Miami, Spanish Real Madrid, Italian Juventus and New York Red Bulls, on July 20, 24, 27 and 31.

Barcelona will begin its campaign in the Spanish League with a confrontation at its stadium “Camp Nou” against Rayo Vallecano in the opening round, on the 13th of next August.

Talks continue about the future of Barcelona stars, during the current summer transfer market, as the administration seeks to reduce the salary load, and find an opportunity for some players to leave.

Barcelona, ​​which is suffering from economic crises, is seeking this summer to give up some of the team’s stars, to make room in the salary list to include new ones.

And according to what was published by the Spanish newspaper “Sport”, the English club Tottenham is seeking to include Dutch duo Memphis Depay and French Clement Lenglet from Barcelona this summer.
And the Spanish newspaper said that Tottenham had inquired about the situation of Dutch striker, Memphis Depay, during the negotiations to sign Clement Lenglet on loan.

The newspaper indicated that Barcelona intends to sell Depay, if he receives an offer of more than 20 million euros, and has informed his lawyer that the player is in the Mercato, and he can find a new club, because he will not get many minutes during the next season.

This comes at a time when “Sport”, quoting the Spanish newspaper “Marca”, confirmed that Tottenham had already completed the Lenglet deal with Barcelona, ​​and had succeeded in including the French defender, during the current summer transfer market, on loan.

And Lenglet has in the loan contract, the option to buy by Tottenham, for 10 million euros, while this option would be the best for Barca, to leave the way to sign with other players.

The newspaper said that the London club will pay 85% of the value of the French salary, while Barcelona will bear 15% of his annual salary, which will make it easier for Barca to reduce the financial burden.

It is reported that Barcelona is in serious negotiations with the Polish Robert Lewandowski, the German star of Bayern Munich, to include him in Mercato this summer.