Barcelona, Real Madrid, Chelsea in a three-way race for 19-year-old Russian midfielder | OneFootball

While Barcelona splashed the cash on big-name players this past summer, they did not take their eye off of youth recruitment.

Talented prospects like Pablo Torre, Emre Demir and Nil Ruiz, among others, arrived at Barça and are currently part of the reserve team. And according to SPORT, Barcelona have now trained their sights on Dynamo Moscow and Russia midfielder Arsen Zakharyan.

The 19-year-old midfielder is widely regarded as one of the most exciting prospects to be coming through in Russian football and has been on the radars of several top clubs already.

Indeed, Chelsea came very close to signing him in the recently concluded transfer window and are still interested in securing his services when the next opportunity presents itself.

However, they will now have to contend with additional interest from Barcelona, while the Catalans’ arch-rivals Real Madrid are also keen on signing Zakharyan.

Just 19 years old, the young attacking midfielder has racked up 13 goals and 16 assists from 55 appearances across all competitions for his club. He also made his debut for the Russian national team in September last year and has earned four caps.

Zakharyan signed a new contract with Dynamo Moscow in January last year, with his deal set to expire in 2024. Barcelona’s scouts have been impressed by his performances and given that he will enter the final year of his contract next summer, they are tracking him.

However, as things stand, Chelsea still lead Barcelona and Real Madrid in the race for Zakharyan, considering they had laid out all the groundwork for the deal this past summer itself.

Whether Barça can convince the young Russian international to snub the interest from the Premier League side and move to Catalonia instead remains to be seen.

Barcelona are also battling Chelsea in the race for 17-year-old Australian attacking prodigy Garang Kuol.