Barcelona Sporting Director Deco dreams of midfielder in 2025 – despite Real Madrid favourites tag | OneFootball

Barcelona Sporting Director Deco has plenty to sort out this summer, but he already has one eye on next summer. His dream signing, as MD put it, is the apple of many eyes in Europe though.

The Catalan daily say that Bayer Leverkusen star Florian Wirtz is Deco’s ideal star signing for the summer of 2025. The 21-year-old is set to stay at Leverkusen next season, and has a contract until 2025, but with Barcelona hoping to be back in a financial position to be able to make a major signing.

Wirtz first became known to Deco several years ago, after his then client Edmond Tapsoba moved from Vitoria Guimaraes to Leverkusen in 2020. Barcelona have already been collecting information on Wirtz for some time too.

The issue will no doubt be the competition. Liverpool, Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City and Bayern Munich have all been linked to Wirtz, but perhaps Barcelona’s biggest issue is that rivals Real Madrid have been signalled as favourites for his signature, with the potential for Xabi Alonso to coach at the Santiago Bernabeu too. In addition, the price tag mentioned with him has been set at around €120-150m by media reports, which even for a Barcelona within its salary limit would be a tall task.

Working in their favour is that Wirtz was a Barcelona fan growing up with ‘posters of Lionel Messi’ in his room, as he has admitted in a previous interview. In addition, he has previously named Joao Felix as one of his favourite players.

Nevertheless, Barcelona will start as rank outsiders for Wirtz’s signature, with the 21-year-old making a case to be the most wanted footballer in the world in 2025. At such a young age, he is already starring for an historic Leverkusen side, and producing numbers that any world class offensive player would be proud of.