Barcelona have a plethora of wide forwards to count on nowadays, having retained Ousmane Dembele, and signed Ferran Torres and Raphinha. In addition, Ansu Fati is returning from injury now.
However around 12 months ago it was Ez Abde, now on loan at Osasuna. that was leading the charge for Barcelona out wide. During a charity event for ACNUR in Colombia, a charity dedicated to helping solve the refugee crisis, and whose logo Barcelona wear on their shirts, Barcelona President has admitted that they were interested in Luis Diaz.
“At that time, we had just landed at the club but Liverpool beat us to it. There was a moment when we were considering his signing but we were still dealing with an economic situation that we had to solve, to reverse and they got ahead of us.”
Diaz made a €47m move to Liverpool last January following impressive showings for both Porto and Colombia in the Copa America. Since he has gone from strength to strength, as Laporta acknowledged to Mundo Deportivo.
“He’s a great player and he belongs to Liverpool and I won’t talk about this anymore but yes, I admit it, in the past, when he went from Porto to Liverpool, we had a conversation with his representative, but Liverpool already had it very advanced.”
The financial issues at Barcelona prohibited them from getting a deal done and it would precipitate the sale of several assets during the summer in order to enable them to sign.
Given Raphinha cost Barcelona €58m (including add-ons), Blaugrana fans may wonder how expensive a delay that might end up being. So far Diaz has outperformed Raphinha considerably, although it is early into both of their careers at new clubs.
