Barcelona’s purchase of Samuel Umtiti from Lyon last summer was an important move for the club’s future, but the loan of Marlon Santos and an injury to Javier Mascherano have quickly pushed a number of centre-backs into the rumor mill for the January transfer window.
The most prominently-linked of the bunch is 18-year-old Ajax centre-back Matthijs de Ligt. He may have signed a contract through 2021, but Ajax have been known to cash in on their top talent and have done plenty of business throughout the years with Barcelona. The young defender has already made his full debut with the Netherlands national team, and his season statistics for Ajax speak for themselves with one assist while completing 89% of his passes.
The recent injury to Javier Mascherano has brought Barcelona’s depth at the centre-back position into question, and it isn’t very surprising to hear that RB Leipzig’s 19-year-old man in the middle Dayot Upamecano has also been linked to the club of late. Another name that has popped up at the back is Sevilla’s 22-year-old centre-back Clement Lenglet, a left-footed French defender that made the move to La Liga last January from AS Nancy.
Upamecano in particular has made a rapid rise onto the world scene, going from FC Valenciennes’ U-19 team in his native France to RB Salzburg in Austria in July 2015. Less than a year and a half later, he was on his way to Germany to Leipzig and his market value has grown to 12 million euros. In the eleven months since coming to Eastern Germany, he has established himself as a starter in the heart of the defense, getting 17 starts this season across the Bundesliga, Champions League and DFB- Pokal.
The Barcelona coaching staff is said to be high on David Costa, the 22-year-old loanee from Celta de Vigo and Barcelona B starter, along with Jorge Cuenca, but neither has yet to make an appearance for the first team yet and so it is no surprise that the club may be looking at players currently plying their trade in top leagues to reinforce the squad.
Francesc and Dan discussed the likelihood of some of these players coming to the Camp Nou in January and much more in the latest episode of ‘The Barcelona Podcast’:
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