Barça has everyone except Koundé

Barça starts a new League today at the Camp Nou against Rayo and does so with almost all the reinforcements it has signed this summer. The team led by Xavi was able to register four (Lewandowski, Raphinha, Kessié and Christensen) of its five signings last night and the renewed Dembélé and Sergi Roberto, after the club activated its fourth lever, with the sale of 24.5% of Barça Studios to Orpheus Media, a company managed by Jaume Roures, partner and founder of Mediapro. Only Koundé was left out, since his incorporation as a culé to LaLiga depends on making a hole in the wage bill with losses from other footballers.

With this new economic operation, the culé club already adds more than 800 million euros in the so-called levers (sale of assets) to get out of its serious situation but also mortgage its future by getting rid of an estimated part of its television rights (25% ), marketing (49%) and audiovisual productions (49.9%) for 25 years.

“We are very optimistic about the issue of signing the signings, because we have time up to two hours before the start of the game, although it may not be one hundred percent. The club is making a very important effort and a great job has been done. We have made very good signings, ”Xavi proclaimed yesterday before the movements in the offices. «We started with great enthusiasm with the new ones and with the competition generated in the locker room. It is a litmus test, because Rayo is a very well-worked team, with well-known names that come out against it like airplanes. It is the moment of truth after a very good preseason », he valued before the press.

The Catalan coach is aware of the demands he has on the new project and does not want any kind of relaxation in the first big exam of the course. It only pays to win. For this, Xavi has almost all the pieces that the entity chaired by Joan Laporta has been bringing together throughout the preseason in the tour of the United States and in the Gamper Trophy. This will allow the Barcelona coach to maintain the block that he has found since returning from vacation. Christensen, in the absence of Koundé, could be the great novelty in the eleven, along with Eric García, with Araujo and Jordi Alba on the wings. It is the only line, the defense, that currently dances with Xavi, after Busquets, Pedri, Gavi, Raphinha, Dembélé and Lewandowski have won the game from midfield forward. They must be the protagonists of a team that will seek a victory from the start that allows them to maintain the good inertia and continue to fill the Barça fans with enthusiasm.

After the approval of LaLiga, Xavi has a practically unlimited squad against Rayo. With two weeks to go until the market closes (August 31), the culés are nevertheless working on the departure of players like Frenkie de Jong, Memphis Depay or Sergiño Dest, footballers who still have their future up in the air but with those that Xavi still tells.

All these options multiply the possibilities of a Barça that arrives at the beginning of the course with the good feelings that it left in the preseason still intact. The azulgranas have achieved two draws and four wins, including the one against Real Madrid in Las Vegas, results that have made the culé fans unleash their euphoria with the new project.

The Cule Nightmare

In any case, if there was a team that complicated Barcelona’s existence last season, it was Rayo Vallecano. Andoni Iraola’s team certified Ronald Koeman’s goodbye in the first round by winning 1-0 in Vallecas and repeated the formula at the Camp Nou at a critical moment for Xavi’s men.

The Catalans fired definitively from the title by falling 0-1 against the red-haired team in a clash marked by Blaugrana apathy. “I made a mistake as a coach for not motivating the team,” assured the Egarense that day after a fateful match. Today will be another difficult match for the Catalans because Rayo arrives with renewed batteries.