Lionel Messi or Bernardo Silva, Laporta's last trump card

Lionel Messi or Bernardo Silva, Laporta's last trump card

| sport

The Barcelona legend at PSG and Man City's playmaker are the big names on the table for next summer

Champions League elimination has made it clear that despite the efforts made to renew the squad, it’s still not completely ready to compete in Europe fully. Barca have very good young players who need to keep growing, but only Robert Lewandowski is a stand-out differential. That weighs on the team. The board and sports staff want to keep going and bring in a new star to help the Polish forward. The two names on the table are Lionel Messi, whose potential return excites, or Bernardo Silva, who Xavi wanted last summer and he wanted to come, but a deal could not be done. Only one of the two can come, and neither will be easy - but it is more than possible.

To do it, Barcelona have to do a lot of homework between now and the summer. The first thing is to find exits for the three captains, Busquets, Pique and Jordi Alba, because of their huge salaries. Then they need a big sale - Frenkie de Jong’s name appears again - and as a back-up they have the last palanca, the sale of BLM, which they would prefer to avoid. Without these strategic movements, it would be near impossible to bring another star.

Barca were thinking about trying to advance this option until January, when the 1-1 rule applies, rather than next summer. The problem is that PSG and City don’t want to let the players go.

In the summer, Messi will be a free agent, while Bernardo Silva will press City to let him go.

Joan Laporta has managed to sign stars that nobody believed he would. Ferran Torres and Aubameyang were imaginative operations last January, and the the summer was incredible,. For January they will focus on a right back, and maybe a pivot.

There is money prepared for that, and they have been working with specific targets. The ‘crack’ will be targeted in the summer, along with Mateu Alemany’s favourite picks of the free agents.

Topics with the letter