Arsenal 18yo spoke with Barcelona scouts, now recommended to President | OneFootball

Icon: Daily Cannon

Daily Cannon

·3 July 2022

Arsenal 18yo spoke with Barcelona scouts, now recommended to President

Article image:Arsenal 18yo spoke with Barcelona scouts, now recommended to President

Former Mexico and Barcelona defender Rafael Marquez is returning to Barcelona as coach of their B team and has called on the club to sign Arsenal’s Marcelo Flores.

After much tooing and frooing, Marcelo Flores opted to pledge his international future to Mexico rather than England or Canada and has already been rewarded with three full caps.

Compatriot, Rafael Marquez, is expected to be announced as Barcelona’s B team coach any day and has already recommended to the Barcelona president that they sign Flores from Arsenal after watching the youngster training at the Arsenal Academy.


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This is not the first time that Flores has been recommended to Barcelona.

Their scouts had already done that and, according to La Opinion, even managed to speak with Flores in December “in the midst of the restructuring with the arrival of Xavi on the bench.”

At the time, Sport in Spain reported that Barcelona were willing to give Arsenal Philippe Coutinho at a vastly reduced price, asking in return for a loan and purchase option for Flores.

Coutinho, as we know, ended up going on loan to Aston Villa, who then purchased him for £18m, more than £100 less than Barcelona paid for him.

Flores’ Arsenal contract expires next summer, however the club have a two-year option on the deal he signed in 2020 and I would expect the club, at the very least, to trigger that rather than sell him.

In fact, it would not be surprising to see them offer him a new deal as we head into the final 12 months of this one, given his increased standing on the international stage, despite still only being 18.

As for Barcelona, well, we know Arsenal are on a path to something good when they are back sniffing around our youth team for players they can poach.

It should be noted, however, that Flores is a Barcelona fan so, depending on his development, we could well see him end up there at some point.

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