BARCELONA – Barcelona closes the winter market on Monday without adding any crew for the first time in four years and with the only last-minute move to send Jean-Clair Todibo to Nice from Benfica after he ruled out signing Eric Garcia , for which both the president of the management company Carles Tusquets and the election candidate Víctor Font fought and whose negotiation with Manchester City could not be carried out due to the refusal of Joan Laporta.
The signing of the young Catalan central defender will thus remain in the hands of the president who emerges from the elections that will take place on March 7 and who will have, like Laporta and the other candidate, Toni Freixa, always defended, the option to incorporate him with the letter of freedom. the fact that since the candidacy of Víctor Font it was considered a strategic error this month not to carry out the operation.
In this way, Ronald Koeman will end the season with the same team that started it, except for Carles Aleñá, who went on loan to Getafe at the beginning of January.
After refusing the departure option requested by Brazilian goalkeeper Neto, the club worked until the last minute on the loan of Matheus Fernandes, also Brazilian, who arrived in the summer after his loan in Valladolid and since the start of the season. he barely played 17 minutes during the Champions League match that Barça defeated (0-4) at Dynamo Kiev.
After Barça tried their luck without success (https://espndeportes.espn.com/AdminMonitor/nota/_/id/7429654/matheus-fernandes-barcelona-koeman-salida) in September, in recent weeks it has intensified contacts in view that Koeman informed him that he will not have minutes in the first team. Barcelona received several proposals from Brazil, especially from the Guild, which the player rejected, being only willing to leave the Camp Nou for a loan to another Spanish club or, finally, agreeing to finish the season in Barcelona B, an option that gave up as a subsidiary did not have free chips.
RETURNED
Thus, the only operation carried out on the last market day by Barcelona was the agreement with Nice for the loan of Todibo, whose adventure at Benfica led to a sovereign failure.
The 21-year-old French central defender has barely played two games for Benfica, burdened from the start by an injury and since then by the zero confidence that Jorge Jesús, the team’s coach, had in him, to the point that he does for weeks he wanted to return to Barcelona.
Koeman reiterated last Saturday that Todibo was not in his plans, something the club had already communicated to the footballer some time ago and in recent days talks with Nice, ranked 13th in the French League and in which he will play as a central borrower until end of season.
The agreement between the two clubs stipulates that Nice will deal with the proportional part of its case until the end of the season and will then have a non-binding purchase option of 8.5 million euros fixed which could reach 15 with a number of variables. Barça, in addition, would reserve in this case 15 percent of what the French club entered in a future transfer of the player.
TO ZERO, AFTER FOUR YEARS
This will be the first season in 2016-17 in which Barcelona will not incorporate any player on the winter market. The club’s alarming economic crisis and the command of a board without the ability to decide without the approval of candidates in elections were essential in this vacuum.
Last season, the Barça club incorporated, already in February and taking advantage of the long-term absence of Dembélé, Martin Braithwaite, from Leganés and for which 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 with Toulouse for six months. before concluding your contract.
The big waste took place in January 2018, when Barça signed the 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 expense of 120 million, 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 for both, a demonstration of their lack of skill when entering a market, sportsman speaking, no got no performance.
Prior to that, Barça had not left the winter market since January 2011, when under Pep Guardiola PSV Eindhoven were paid three million euros to sign Dutchman Ibrahim Afellay, whose performance as a Barça player was also a fiasco, collapsed. from wounds