FC Barcelona has already made its big summer signing, as explained by Mundo Deportivo reporter Fernando Polo.
In an interview with the same outlet this weekend, the club’s president Joan Laporta warned Culers not to expect a marquee transfer ahead of the 2024/2025 season and instead some ‘tweaking’ of the current squad.
“We are in a process of economic recovery where if some of the operations we are carrying out end up bearing fruit, and I think that we will soon have good news in that sense, [then] we will be back with a healthy club,” Laporta stated, before then confirming that his board doesn’t see splashing cash as “necessary”.
As Polo points out, however, Barca will indeed make a big signing this summer in a theoretical sense – yet thankfully won’t have to spend a penny for that to become a reality as the transfer has already been completed.
On Friday, the club teased Gavi’s comeback by posting photos and a video of him completing recovery work on the beach.
The youngster suffered an ACL rupture during the November international break while playing a pretty pointless Spain match against Georgia, and was subsequently ruled out for the rest of the season.
And while that kind of knee knock can often be the undoing of many a professional, Polo writes that “no one in Barca’s staff doubts he will rebuild himself and return to his best, ready to continue being the heart and soul” of the team, “as well as an exceptional midfielder with technique, power and arrival [into the oppositon box] in equal parts”.
Polo stresses that nobody should rush Gavi’s return, and “let those who fantasize about him being at the Olympic Games forget about him”.
“If he comes back in September, fine, and if it’s in October [then that’s fine] too.”
There is also no doubting that Gavi’s injury coincided with a slump at the Montjuic Stadium which contributed to Barca ceding a Spanish Super Cup title he helped win against Madrid in 2023 to the same opposition, as the La Liga crown now appears set to make the same journey from Catalonia to the Spanish capital.
With Gavi back in the midfield for 2024/2025, however, Barca will be boosted by a player worth his weight in gold and for whom there is no like-for-like replacement elsewhere.
