Why Barcelona rejected the chance to sign Atalanta star last summer | OneFootball

La Liga giants Barcelona turned down the opportunity to bring in a headline member of the midfield setup at Serie A outfit Atalanta last summer.

That’s according to Diario Sport, citing Cadena SER, who point towards Éderson as the player in question.

Midfielder Éderson, for his part, has seen his name emerge as a leading one across all of Europe over the course of the last 24 hours.

This comes after the Brazilian played a starring role in Atalanta making short work of the previously-unbeaten Bayer Leverkusen in the finale of the Europa League.

Whilst Ademola Lookman stole the headlines courtesy of a match-winning hat-trick, Éderson was nothing short of spectacular in his role at the base of La Dea’s midfield, shining on both sides of the ball, and shutting down his Bayer counterparts in the process.

Looking every bit of the kind of player missing from the aforementioned Barcelona’s engine room ranks this season, it will in turn no doubt be of interest to those of a Blaugrana persuasion to hear that Éderson was actually offered to their side before the season got underway.

Amid Deco’s search for a new deep-lying midfielder, the 24-year-old’s services were offered up by his representatives.

Barca, however, rejected the option, having been unable to meet Atalanta’s €30 million asking price.

In the end, the Catalans were forced to settle for a cut-price deal for Girona’s Oriol Romeu.

Conor Laird | GSFN