Chelsea, Borussia Dortmund among clubs tracking 19-year-old Barcelona defensive prodigy | OneFootball

Barcelona have learned their lesson the hard way over several years of poor financial management and have finally started cutting out the middleman when making transfers.

Some of them have not worked out, like Francisco Trincao, Ez Abde, and Pablo Torre, while there have been several others that have almost immediately paid dividends, for example, Pedri, Ronald Araujo, Julian Araujo, and most recently Mikayil Faye.

The blaugranes signed for Barcelona in the summer of 2023 for €1.5 million from NK Kustosija. He has put in some incredible shifts for Barça Atletic this season, and could be promoted to the senior team next season.

Xavi had called him for Barcelona’s tour of United States of America during the preseason, and also played the second half of the friendly against Club America pre-Christmas break.

However, there are already big sharks circling him for the summer, as per a report by SPORT.

Chelsea, Borussia Dortmund, Girona in race

Girona are one of the first teams that will be looking to sign Faye in the summer, and one of the ways they can do it is through loan, like they did with Pablo Torre and Eric Garcia this season.

The latter is expected to be on his way out of Girona by next season, which could make space for Faye to be incorporated into the Girona starting lineup.

Bigger dogs like Chelsea and Borussia Dortmund are also interested in the Senegalese’s signature. They also tried signing him last summer, but were trumped by Barcelona.

The Chadi Riad case

Faye will face a massive obstacle finding his place in the senior team next season. Ronald Araujo is the only centre-back with a cemented place in the starting lineup, while Inigo Martinez is expected to continue in the team due to his age.

One of Jules Kounde or Andreas Christensen could be sold to earn some revenue through player sales and bring in player in different positions. The idea is to bring in Chadi Riad on a buyback clause from Real Betis and rotate him with the senior players.

Faye will need to prove his worth over three well-proven defenders if he wants to sniff a place in the team next season.