For Xavi Hernandez, he was “a blessing”. Barcelona’s president was similarly awestruck. “Of course he brings professionalism, experience and responsibility,” Joan Laporta gushed, “but he’s a hell of a guy and he’s brought the club an air of glamour.”
Robert Lewandowski’s debut campaign at Barcelona, which ended with the league title and top scorer gong, could not have gone much better. However, the clawing hands of time have begun to catch up with the 35-year-old this season.
“Before coming to Barcelona, I was a bit of a goal machine,” Lewandowski reflected during September’s international break. “Here I’ve become a bit more ‘human’.”
The Pole was sidelined by injury during October’s club hiatus, exposing a considerable hole in Barcelona’s squad at the centre-forward position. The Brazilian teenager Vitor Roque is set to join the Catalans in 2024 but Xavi may need another central figure to call upon as Lewandowski gradually winds down a prolific career.
Here are some of the options for the Catalans to mull over.
At the start of the 2023/24 season, the Italian football daily Gazzetta dello Sport dubbed Napoli’s Victor Osimhen “the best of the human No 9s” in Europe. Erling Haaland did not count.
Aside from the Norwegian – who is scarcely likely to leave Manchester City anytime soon – Osimhen represents the dream transfer for any club. Alongside a healthy torrent of goals scored from any angle or height, Osimhen has the intelligence, energy and GoGo Gadget limbs to press an entire backline on his own.
However, dealing with Napoli’s infamous owner Aurelio De Laurentiis will be a struggle. Last summer, the film producer reportedly fired off an email to Al Hilal laughing off their bid of €200m. “For next year,” De Laurentiis wrote, “I expect you’ll be able to table €500m and maybe we’ll entertain your offer, but I say again, ‘maybe’.”
Lautaro Martinez revealed that he “was truly very close to joining Barcelona and I even talked it over with Messi” in 2021. However, “economic problems” with the Catalans scuppered a move back then and are likely to be a sticking point for any future acquisition.
The World Cup winner is an archetypically streaky striker, liable to suffer a yawning goal drought each season, but manages to emerge from each campaign with a healthy stack of strikes; racking up more than 100 for Inter since the summer of 2019.
Part of a staggering glut of Nigerian strikers emerging at the same time, Victor Boniface has enjoyed a very modern journey to reach Europe’s elite; plucked out of the Real Sapphire academy by Norwegian over-performers Bodo/Glimt, Boniface’s prolific edge was spotted by Brighton’s satellite club Union Saint-Gilloise.
Bayer Leverkusen snapped up the 22-year-old in the summer, reaping the rewards of a £17m transfer fee that already looks pitiful. A tally of seven goals before the October international break is impressive enough, but Boniface has taken more shots inside the penalty area (38) than any other player has managed from any distance in Europe’s top five leagues.
There is no coincidence that Xavi lauded a player crafted by the hand of Pep Guardiola as a “heaven-sent signing”. There are plenty of differences between Xavi and his former manager – one is considerably better at the job – but any time under the senior Catalan will certainly help your adaptation to life at the current Barcelona, as Ilkay Gundogan has found.
Julian Alvarez has enjoyed a dizzying upward trajectory since arriving at City in 2022. Not only would La Aranita – the Spider – arrive in Spain with schooling in Guardiola’s brand of positional play, but he also possesses an innate directness and versatility that would allow him to dovetail with Lewandowski before ushering him into retirement.
How Barcelona can persuade Alvarez to leave the treble winners is another question entirely.
The reaction on El Chiringuito would be worth the inordinate transfer fee alone. Just imagine how the painfully partisan pundits on the cartoonish Spanish football show would take the news of Kylian Mbappe not only turning down Real Madrid – his eternal suitors – but choosing Barcelona instead.
When Mbappe renewed his contract at PSG rather than move to Madrid in 2022, Jose Felix Diaz sniped: “You’ll be a great player, but never a great man.”
Josep Pedrerol took up the baton of disdain after another swerve last summer. “Mbappe has broken his word,” the greasy-haired presenter declared, between pauses so long there was time for the tension to build and then fade before rising again. “It makes me rage that Mbappe has dropped Madrid.”
Tomas Roncero simply growled while wearing a hastily made T-shirt which read: “I have no idea what’s going to happen with Mbappe”.
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