On deadline day, Manchester City’s João Cancelo completed a loan move to Barcelona.
Wednesday’s Marca has a report explaining how the La Liga side made a decision to sign the 29-year-old.
Xavi Hernández had made it clear to the club’s leaders he wanted a new right-back and this saw them identify the Manchester City player, Iván Fresneda and Villarreal’s Juan Foyth as three targets.
Back in July, the Blaugrana signed Trilli from Deportivo La Coruña for Barcelona Atlétic. He and Héctor Fort are the two bright young right-backs in their academy.
In order to not block the duo’s development, Barcelona decided not to sign 18-year-old Fresneda, despite holding several meetings both with his agent and Real Valladolid. He ended up joining Sporting on August 30th.
The outlet states Foyth was the favourite target for Xavi but the operation was ruled out because of the high clause [reportedly set at €54m] included in his contract.
Marca say Barca had decided not to spend big on a fullback and therefore, the choice was made to sign Cancelo.The Manchester City owned player’s arrival will not block Trilli and Fort’s path to the first team.
In addition to this, there is no high cost attached to his signing [no purchase option as well] and the Portuguese player also took a pay cut to arrive at the Camp Nou.
Marca say that even though Cancelo wasn’t the first-choice for Xavi, several other factors saw Barca decide to bet on him.
