Barcelona attempted to sign Rafael Leao from AC Milan during the summer transfer window but the move was rejected by La Liga.
As reported by Bar Canaletes (via Football Espana), Barcelona president Joan Laporta has been desperate to add another star name to his team and he settled on Leao in the latter stages of the transfer window.
Despite never agreeing a fee with Milan for the Portuguese winger, Barcelona had sent a a memorandum of understanding to La Liga stating their and Nike’s intentions to sign a deal.
Barcelona have been struggling to register players in La Liga which meant they needed the league to give them the green light to go ahead with the deal for the former Sporting and Lille attacker.
La Liga president Javier Tebas made it clear to Laporta that this would not be sufficient to register the player and Laporta should stop trying to make it happen.
Barcelona’s registration problems manifested themselves with Dani Olmo this summer. Barcelona could not register the new signing but Tebas opted to let them use an emergency injury rule so that Olmo’s salary was registered in place of Andreas Christensen’s.
There are suggestions that the Danish defender will not be out for as long as Barcelona are making out.
The situation is tricky and it seems like the main dilema is whether he will grow and become a better player, or he will become the next Balotelli in which case we need to cash in while we can. A dilemma that could’ve been solved by, you know, a top class coach and management that understands football. Right now it’s practically impossible to determine who is the real Rafa, because he isn’t put in the necessary circumstances to advance his playing style and mature mentally.
It’s indeed a tricky situation, tricky and sad: there’s really a huge, an altogether fantastic amount of football talent on Rafa’s feet, I always a big admirer of him. Nevertheless, there’s something in his attitude, in the guy”s state of mind, that most of times simply doesn’t click. And honestly speaking, we cannot afford one more so-so season by him, or even a fairly good one, this time I guess it’s “make or break” time.
So so season, Fairly good one, the numbers don’t lie and he remains the best, know this and know peace. without Leao Milan will be back at the banter era
In fairness, I’m not trying to attack or defend either player, but Leao’s numbers are exactly the same as Pulisic’s. One G and one A in three matches.
Yes. Counting from when Pulisic was hired, Rafa’s numbers are 30 goals + assists while Puli’s are 29.
The people who keep complaining of Rafa are completely misguided. He is our most prolific forward. They call his inconsistent but in the last 3 seasons he was consistently our player with the highest number of goals + assists all competitions considered, or the 2nd best (in one of the last 3 seasons, Giroud had 1 more than Rafa).
This heavy criticism will end up pushing the player out (even the club’s CEO said he’d personally pack Rafa’s bags which is an extremely disrespectful thing to say about one’s own player). Once Rafa leaves, our offense will struggle a lot more (not only he is our most prolific goal contributor but he also opens space for the companions by being double or triple marked).
Welcome to Banter Era 2.0 without Rafa.
“Once Rafa leaves, our offense will struggle a lot more (not only he is our most prolific goal contributor but he also opens space for the companions by being double or triple marked).
Welcome to Banter Era 2.0 without Rafa.”
Yes, but our defense will improve a helluva lot. And remember what Sir Alex said about defenses… They win championships.
Triple marked? 😀 😀 😀
Ridiculous. I though it was half of the opponents. Sometimes they park 9 players around Leao because they are so afraid of him. LOL. Leao-fanbois are the best. 😀 😀 😀 😀
Same issue as Balotelli, but less severe. I’m beginning to rethink my entire position on our formation, personnel and coach.
Given the end of the Pioli era, the closing in of the expiration of Theo’s contract and the issues in renewing it, Leao’s attitude issues, and the fact that apparently we still needed enough pieces as to require the signing of another 4-5 players this summer, maybe what we needed to do was a true year zero this past summer.
I was against a 3-5-2 system because of the players we already had, namely Leao. But now I’m thinking we should have sold Theo and Leao. We probably would have been able to get at least 140M combined for them. Add the “usual” transfer funds and we’re talking about 200M available. Then we should have hired a coach that used a 3-back system. Conte (I hate to say it), Gilardino, Palladino or maybe even Tudor.
Buy Dorgu (20M), Kayode (30M), Buongiorno (35M), Pavlovic (20M), Fofana (25M), a true DM (30-40M budget), Morata (13M), and a second striker (Gudmundsson/Cambiaghi (now injured)/keep CDK/Hlozek?) budgeted at up to 30M.
By this age, if had he got everything correct and sorted out in-his-mind, he would have been brilliant for the past two years. Unfortunately, he shone when he was younger and less known. Once he stepped out into the spotlight, he has been very underwhelming and unimpressive.
Underwhelming and unimpressive? Counting from the beginning of last season and including the last games, he’s had 30 goal contributions (scores + assists) in all competitions. How is that unimpressive??? Who has more in this same period? I will tell you who: Lautaro Martinez had 2 more than Rafa in the same period. That’s it. Nobody else. Rafa was just 2 below the player who is considered now as the best Serie A player and one of the 5 best in the world. And with that phenomenally powerful Inter offense and midfield (which makes scores and assists more likely for Lautaro than for a Milan player), Lautaro had only two goal contributions ahead of Leão.
Why is it that people love to bash our best and most gifted player???