The Spotify Camp Nou was still emptying when Alejandro Balde was asked the question he must have known was coming. Not about the Joan Gamper Trophy his side had just won 2-1 against Al Ahly, nor about the low cross he rolled across the six-yard box on 29 minutes for Hamza Abdelkarim to tap in. About whether he is still going to be a Barcelona player in a fortnight.
He did not dodge it. “I’m a very quiet guy. I know there’s a lot of talk, but I think I’m doing things right,” the left-back told TV3 in comments carried by Barça Blaugranes. “I don’t look at the press, but it’s inevitable that it will come. I think I have to focus on myself and my work, and things come.”
It is the first time Alejandro Balde has addressed a summer of speculation head-on — and it lands in the same week that the man most likely to take his shirt walked back through the door at the Camp Nou.
Why Alejandro Balde is suddenly a question mark
Balde is 22, homegrown, and until recently the uncontested first-choice left-back in this squad. A patchy campaign last season changed the temperature. Reports through July and August suggested the club would at least listen if a serious offer arrived before the window shut, and Barça Blaugranes report that the speculation has followed him all summer.
Then came Joao Cancelo. The Portugal international is set to return to the club for a third spell after his Al-Hilal contract was terminated, and Barça Blaugranes report he is hoping to start the season as Hansi Flick’s first choice on the left. We wrote about the shape of that deal — a permanent move running to 2029 — here.
The bureaucracy has been messier than the football. Cancelo got as far as changing into a Barça shirt with the No. 2 on the back for Wednesday’s squad presentation before being pulled from the tunnel, because the signing had not actually been announced. Mundo Deportivo expect the confirmation on Thursday.
What the numbers game looks like
Even with Cancelo in, Barça are not overstocked at left-back. Gerard Martin has been used there and started at centre-back in the Gamper, while Flick spent Wednesday night moving people around — Jules Koundé to centre-back, Eric Garcia to right-back — in a way that suggests versatility matters more to him than fixed roles this season.
Balde’s reading of the group, for what it is worth, was upbeat. “The team is in good shape. It’s been a different pre-season because the World Cup players came back afterwards. The team is fine, physically very well.”
He may be right about the fitness, and the assist for Hamza’s opener — a goal the teenager refused to celebrate against his old club — was a reminder of what Balde offers going forward when the game opens up in front of him.
The clock is the real story
There are only days of the window left, and Barça’s attention is elsewhere. Mundo Deportivo report the club began processing the registrations of Anthony Gordon, Karim Adeyemi, Rodri and Cancelo on Thursday, with all four expected to be available for Sunday’s LaLiga opener away at Elche. Deco, meanwhile, has all but promised one more attacking signing before deadline day.
None of that guarantees Balde stays, and none of it guarantees he goes. What it does mean is that any exit would now have to happen very fast, and that no bid of the size Barça would want has publicly landed.
For now, the Blaugrana academy graduate is doing exactly what he said he would: keeping his head down, playing, and letting the noise pass over him. Sunday night at Elche will tell us whether Flick agrees that the noise was just noise.
