Nine days before the summer window shuts, the most eye-catching name being shopped around Europe by Jorge Mendes is not one of the strikers Barca have spent all month chasing. It is their own left-back. According to Fabrizio Romano, Mendes has offered Alejandro Balde to AC Milan — a conversation that would have looked absurd a year ago, when the La Masia graduate was Barca’s settled long-term answer in that position.
The caveats matter as much as the headline. Milan, per the same reporting carried by Barca Universal, are not currently planning a move of that size, with Barca understood to value Balde at more than 40 million euros. And Balde himself is described as happy in Barcelona, not looking for an exit, and intent on fighting for his place. This is an agent testing a market, not a player asking to leave.
What you will find below:
- Exactly what Romano reported about Mendes, Balde and AC Milan
- Why Barca’s valuation is the reason the Serie A club have not moved
- How Joao Cancelo’s permanent signing changed Balde’s standing under Hansi Flick
- Manchester United’s earlier enquiry, and what became of it
- What can realistically happen before the 31 August deadline
Background: how Alejandro Balde went from untouchable to available
Balde is 22, wears the No 3, and joined Barca at eight years old. He broke into the first team and almost immediately became one of the most exciting young full-backs in European football — quick, relentless in the channel outside the winger, and the kind of academy product a club builds a defence around. His contract runs to 2028. Until recently, the idea of Barca entertaining offers for him would have been treated as noise.
Two things changed. The first is that Cancelo came back. The Portuguese finished last season as a starter after his loan spell, and this week the club made it permanent: a three-year deal to 2029, signed on Thursday and presented at the Spotify Camp Nou on Friday, with Cancelo giving up part of his salary to make the numbers work. We covered that deal in full when Cancelo’s third spell at Barca was confirmed. Barca Blaugranes have noted that Balde lost his starting place after Cancelo’s arrival in the winter, and a permanent signing on a three-year contract is a very different kind of competition to a loanee passing through.
The second is the reporting — and it is reporting, not club comment — that Flick has some doubts about Balde’s development. That claim has appeared in several outlets over the past week. It has not come from Flick, who has said nothing publicly to that effect, and it should be read as journalists’ assessment rather than a club position.
The Alejandro Balde AC Milan report, line by line
Mendes offered him; Milan did not bite
The specific news is narrow and worth stating precisely. Romano reports that Mendes, who represents Balde, has offered the defender to AC Milan while exploring the market for his client. Milan, however, are not planning an outlay of that size at the moment, particularly with Barca valuing the left-back above 40 million euros. There is no bid, no negotiation and, on the evidence available, no Milan appetite.
What it does confirm is that Balde now has a price rather than a protected status. Barca have been aware for some time that a summer departure could become realistic under the right circumstances — which, in the language of a club operating under LaLiga’s 1:1 fair play rule after spending heavily on Rodri, Anthony Gordon and Karim Adeyemi, means the right fee.
The Mendes round of meetings
The Milan approach did not come out of nowhere. Mendes was in Barcelona this week for Cancelo’s contract signing and presentation, spent an hour with sporting director Deco on Thursday afternoon, and then, according to Jijantes via Mundo Deportivo, held separate meetings with Balde and Marc Casado on Friday afternoon. He put the interest he had gathered in front of both players.
Casado’s situation is the clearer of the two: Mundo Deportivo report he does not figure in Flick’s plans this season, has rejected Saudi Arabia despite bids from Al-Hilal and Al-Ahli, and would prefer to stay in European football, with Milan, Nottingham Forest, Benfica and a Turkish club among those interested. Barca accept they will not recoup the roughly 40 million euros a Saudi move offered and are hoping for around 30 million instead. Our earlier piece on where Casado’s exit stands has the detail.
Balde’s case is different in one crucial respect: his priority, as it has always been, is Barca. Mundo Deportivo report he has been told about the interest and that the decision is his — which is not the same as a player weighing up his options with any enthusiasm.
Manchester United came first
Milan are the second club to be linked inside a week. Romano reported earlier that Manchester United had called Mendes to ask about Balde’s situation and transfer conditions, after Newcastle United refused to sell Lewis Hall. That was an enquiry and nothing more — no bid was lodged — and we set out at the time why Barca’s left-back was not going anywhere on the back of it. The pattern across both stories is the same: interest exists, an agent is happy to advertise it, and no club has come close to the number Barca would need.
The counter-argument: Balde is playing, and Barca are not pushing
Read the football rather than the transfer talk and this looks a lot less dramatic. Balde had a back problem early in pre-season, started away at Basel, and started the Joan Gamper Trophy against Al Ahly, where he reclaimed the left-back spot after Jordi Pesquer’s strong pre-season. Mundo Deportivo described him as incisive going forward in that game, and he supplied the assist for Hamza Abdelkarim’s opener on 29 minutes in a 2-1 win.
Mundo Deportivo’s projected XI for Sunday’s LaLiga opener at Elche — a projection, not a leaked teamsheet — has Balde at left-back, with Spain’s World Cup winners largely out of contention after barely a week and a half of training. A player Barca were quietly trying to move on would not be starting the opening weekend of a title defence.
Nor is the club briefing that he is surplus. The consistent line, across the reporting, is that Barca are not pushing Balde out; they are simply no longer treating him as unsellable. Those are different things, and the difference is roughly 40 million euros.
Future outlook: nine days, one decision
The window closes on 31 August, and Barca’s priority in what remains of it is a centre-forward, not a left-back. Deco said after the Al Ahly win that there would be a move at No 9 before the deadline; the Julian Alvarez pursuit has run into a public refusal from Atletico Madrid, and Inter’s Lautaro Martinez has been the alternative most credibly reported. That is where the club’s money and attention are going.
Which makes an outgoing left-back deal a function of somebody else’s decision-making. If a club arrives with a fee north of 40 million euros in the final week, Barca would have to think about it, both because of the 1:1 rule and because Cancelo can play the position tomorrow. If nobody does — and Milan, on Romano’s account, are not about to — Balde starts the season as Flick’s first-choice left-back and the question rolls into next summer, with two years still to run on his contract.
The likeliest outcome, on everything reported so far, is nothing at all. Agents test markets in the closing fortnight of a window; that is the job. The story here is not that Balde is leaving. It is that a 22-year-old academy full-back who was untouchable eighteen months ago is now a player Barca would listen about, and that is a real shift in how the club see him.
What it means for Barca
Flick goes to the Estadio Manuel Martinez Valero on Sunday night with a left-back who has been offered to two clubs in a week and who, by every account, wants to stay and win the place back properly. If Balde plays the way he did at the Gamper, the valuation stops being the interesting number and the minutes start being. For a squad still short of a striker with nine days left to fix it, that would be the least complicated outcome available.
Reported by Fabrizio Romano via Barca Universal, and by Jijantes via Mundo Deportivo. Transfer claims are attributed to their original outlets and are not confirmed by either club.
