According to the Spanish outlet Cuatro, Erling Haaland has communicated to Borussia Dortmund that he wants to leave the club in the summer. The Norwegian striker have made his decision about leaving, and in fact, his family already has bought a house in Marbella, Spain.
Recently, Haaland has been linked strongly to Real Madrid, but Barcelona is strong in the race too. After his agent Mino Raiola’s words towards English giants Manchester United and Manchester City, it looks like his destination is set to become La Liga.

While recent reports claim that Haaland is closer to Real Madrid, Barcelona’s newly elected president Joan Laporta’s strong relationship with the player’s superagent is capable of changing narratives.

The 20-year-old has scored a staggering 33 goals in 31 games this season for the German side and provided 8 assists as well. Not to mention that 10 of his goals came in the Champions League, in which he eliminated Sevilla single-handedly from the competition.

We will have to wait and see where the young jewel will end up, and it looks like it will be a complicated summer transfer market considering that the financial situation for clubs does not look the best to make such a big signing.

It would be not a surprise to see that Haaland will have to spend another season in the Bundesliga if none of Europe’s top clubs can afford his signing, but one thing is clear: sooner or later, the Champions League top scorer will end up in one of Europe’s elite clubs.

CREDITS: BARCA NEWS

Barcelona’s Pedri is growing in stature more and more with each passing week as noted by Diario Sport, both on the pitch and in the offices of Camp Nou. The teenager’s market value, according to Transfermarkt, has hit €70m, meaning he’s the La Liga player to have seen his value jump the highest in the recent update.

Pedri was rated at €50m back in January, meaning he’s gained €20m in value in just two-and-a-half months. He’s now the second 18 year-old player in the rankings according to value in all of football, with just his teammate Ansu Fati, rated at €80m, ahead of him.

Pedri was rated at just €7.2m last season while at Las Palmas. He hit €15m in October, €30m in November and then €50m in January, before reaching his current tally of €70m now. He’s surpassed only by Lionel Messi (€80m), Frenkie de Jong (€80m), Fati and Marc-Andre ter Stegen (€75m) in the Barcelona squad.

Another player to have seen his stock rise significantly in the past few months is Oscar Mingueza, who’s gone from €5m to €10m in this latest update after being valued at just €150k a year ago. Several teams have asked for the centre-back, who Barcelona have the option of triggering a two-year contract extension with until the beginning of the summer.

There has been a flurry of Barcelona news on Tuesday surrounding their newly elected president Joan Laporta reaching the obligatory deposit payment.

The club’s legislature states that any newly elected president must make a depository payment of 15 percent of the club’s budget – which currently stands at €124.6m – within ten days of their election.

That means that Laporta must deposit that sum of money by Wednesday, and that was in doubt due to a collapse in an agreement with Catalan-based renewable energy company Audax Renovables, who were set to guarantee €70m of that payment.

José Elías Navarro, the founder of Audax, claimed that it would be impossible for him to fund the club – they can only assist them at a managerial and experience level.

It was sparked by a report in El Periodico outlining that the payment was in the air and the remainder of the day saw Laporta and his team scrambling to secure investment from elsewhere, even if they had to compromise the power dynamics on their new-look board.

However, multiple reports – including that from Catalan outlet La Vanguardia – outlined that Laporta had committed to his €124.6m payment and he will be instilled as Blaugrana president on Wednesday.

This means that Laporta will not have to seek the North American risk fund, which had been suggested as the reality by Jaume Giró – a leading economic advisor who walked out of Laporta’s team in recent days, despite being a key player in his election.

Despite multiple complications, Giró’s exit and a great level of uncertainty regarding the guaranteed payment and subsequent election, it now looks a formality that Laporta will formally become Blaugrana president this week.

The rumours linking Cristiano Ronaldo with a return to Real Madrid have spread like wildfire in this past week, with neither the player nor the club moving to pour cold water on them as noted by Diario AS. Cristiano likes the idea, and Madrid could certainly use him given the financial difficulties they face in engineering moves for Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe. The major obstacle, however, is the Portuguese’s salary.

Cristiano is currently collecting €31m net per season at Juventus, a significant outlay for a club that lost €113.7m in the first six months of this season due to the Coronavirus pandemic. This has been exacerbated by their exit in the last 16 of the Champions League last week at the hands of Porto. For this, there’s actually a possibility that Juventus could let Ronaldo leave the club for free despite the fact he has a contract until 2022, simply to save the money they would otherwise spend on his wages. It’s estimated Cristiano takes up a fifth of Juventus’ wage bill.

Cristiano earned €21m net when he left Madrid for €100m in the summer of 2018, but their financial situation is very different now to what it was then. The Portuguese will have to make an effort to lower his salary to enable Madrid to fit him into their wage structure, especially with the acquisitions of Haaland and Mbappe potentially on the horizon. Whether Gareth Bale stays in the Spanish capital next season will also have significant bearing.

If he plays against Huesca, the Argentine will equal Xavi as the player with the most games in FC Barcelona history (767)

A new historic record for Leo Messi is approaching, and it’s an important one. He is only one game away from being the footballer with the most ever appearances for FC Barcelona. If he plays against Huesca, it will be Messi’s 767th game with Barça, matching the legendary Xavi Hernández.

As of Monday, no player will have worn the Barça shirt on more occasions. The Argentine has been, for years, the player with the most trophies (34) and most goals (658) in Barça history, among many other records.

Six competitions, 766 matches
The 766 games played so far by Leo Messi are divided into a total of six different competitions. La Liga is the competition with the most matches, with Messi playing a total of 509 in the Spanish top flight. As for the Champions League, he has played 149 games, while 79 have come in in the Copa del Rey, 20 in the Spanish Super Cup, five in the Club World Cup and four in the European Super Cup.

No place like home

Of these 766 games, a total of 375 have been at the Camp Nou, while 372 have been away fixtures. He has also played 19 games at neutral venues. Of these matches, he has won 535, drawn 140 and lost 91.

If we break down Messi’s appearances by seasons, the campaign where he played the most games (60) was 2011/12, followed by the 2014/15 season (57), 2010/11 (55) and 2009/10 (53).

Real Madrid the most frequent opponents
The opposition against whom he has played the most games are Real Madrid with 44, followed by Sevilla (43), Atlético Madrid (42), Athletic Club (40), Espanyol and Valencia ( 35).

From one legend to another
Xavi Hernández set his record five-and-a-half years ago, in the last of his 17 seasons with the club. Along the way, he won 27 trophies with FC Barcelona, in a club career that began on August 18, 1998.

He now makes way for one of his most prolific former teammates, with whom he linked up during a highly successful period in club history. Leo Messi is now FC Barcelona’s all-time appearance record holder.