Frankfurt draw confirms there is no Barça future for Braithwaite

Barcelona's 1-1 draw in Frankfurt left various conclusions. One, as Xavi Hernandez has warned several times, is that there's no room to relax. Every team works hard on every game, previewing, analysing, the physical side of things... At moments, Frankfurt's players seemed like airplanes and unbalanced Barça's backline. Secondly, that the best players, the ones who make the difference, can't appear in every game. Pedri, for example, has one of his quieter matches. And another is that Martin Braithwaite does not count at all for Xavi.

Despite an injury to Memphis Depay, Xavi's most used substitute in attack over the last month, and Luuk de Jong having Covid-19, there was still no game time for Braithwaite. Since returning from injury on Jan. 20 in the Copa del Rey against Athletic, the Dane has played a total of 24 minutes. Asked about him once, Xavi said he was another player in the squad who would rotate. But in Germany we saw that is not the case.

After a tough game, Barça were presented with an opportunity late on when Frankfurt were reduced to 10 men. With the score at 1-1, they had a chance to win the game and potentially kill the tie. Another striker may have helped. But Braithwaite didn't even get a single minute. He watched the game from the bench.

WORLD CUP

A few days ago, SPORT revealed that he's obliged to leave this summer if he wants to be at the World Cup in Qatar. If he remains at Barça, his chances of minutes and, therefore, being in the Denmark team are slim.

Kasper Hjulmand, the coach of the Danish side, has a good selection of players so he can afford to leave players out who are not playing. Therefore, Braithwaite, who is out of contract in 2024, is one of the players Barça could cash in on.