Matthijs de Ligt effectively turned down Barcelona last summer when he elected to join Juventus, but he’s already flirting with other teams in quotes picked up by Mundo Deportivo this week.
De Ligt’s Ajax teammate Frenkie de Jong did end up joining the Blaugrana, where he has already had a season, and
“From the moment Barcelona’s “tiki-taka” arrived, everyone has wanted to play out from the back.”
“And to play out from the back you need defenders who are really good with the ball.”
He’s talking about this in the context of his own career at junior level, where he explains he started out as a goalscoring midfielder before being moved gradually back in the team.
De Ligt struggled at times this season, and there were hints that he might be regretting his decision to move to Turin rather than go to Catalonia with his friend Frenkie.
Whether these quotes show him fluttering his eye-lashes at Barca, or whether he’s just giving an honest assessment of how football has developed, isn’t quite clear.
But for as long as he continues to talk about them in such a flattering fashion, the links will go on.
