Alejandro Balde has not kicked a ball in anger this season, and the silence around his situation is starting to fill with noise from the Premier League.
According to SPORT, Liverpool are monitoring the Barcelona left-back ahead of the January transfer window – and the timing is pointed, because superagent Jorge Mendes is due in the Catalan capital on Monday afternoon with his client’s future among the items on his agenda.
It is a strange place for a 22-year-old to find himself. Eighteen months ago Balde was widely regarded as one of the most explosive young full-backs in Europe, a La Masia graduate whose sheer speed made him a weapon the rest of La Liga could not replicate. Today he is a squad member in name and a spectator in practice, watching from the bench as Hansi Flick’s side race to six wins from six in all competitions.
Six games, zero minutes
The raw number is the story. Barcelona have played five La Liga matches and their Champions League opener against Feyenoord. Balde has featured in none of them. He continues to be named in Flick’s squads, he continues to train, and he continues to be publicly backed by the club’s hierarchy — but he has not been trusted with a single minute of competitive football.
That is not an accident of rotation. Flick has used the left side of his defence freely this season, and the men he has turned to have delivered. Gerard Martín has started regularly. João Cancelo, signed on a free from Al Hilal in the summer, offers a different profile entirely. And then there is Xavi Espart, the 19-year-old who has forced his way into the conversation with the sort of assured performances that make a coach’s selection decisions easier rather than harder.
Espart’s opener at the Ciutat de València on Sunday — a goal that arrived in the fifth minute after a stretch of possession so one-sided that Levante had barely touched the ball — was the clearest statement yet. You can read our breakdown of Espart’s first Barcelona goal and the record it put him alongside, but the short version is that the teenager is not keeping the shirt warm for anybody.
Why Liverpool are watching
Per SPORT, Liverpool have emerged as a potential destination in January, attracted in part by the idea that Balde’s circumstances could make him an unusually good-value acquisition. His contract at the Spotify Camp Nou runs until 2028 and carries the standard €1 billion release clause Barcelona attach to their homegrown players, but his realistic market value is reported at around €40 million — and a player with no minutes and a January deadline is rarely in a position to command a premium.
The Premier League fit is easy enough to sketch. Balde’s game is built on acceleration and repeated runs into the final third, the kind of physical profile English football tends to reward. He was linked with Manchester United and Inter Milan during the summer window, so the interest is neither new nor confined to one club.
There is also a working relationship between the two clubs to build on. Ronald Araújo left for Anfield on loan this summer and has settled quickly — though, as we reported, that deal was structured without a purchase option. Barcelona and Liverpool have shown they can do business quickly when both sides want it done, and that matters in a January window where speed is usually the difference between a deal and a near-miss.
Mendes lands in Barcelona
Into that context walks Jorge Mendes. SPORT reports that the Portuguese agent is due to land at Barcelona’s private flight terminal at around 14:00 local time on Monday for a whistle-stop visit of a few hours, with several meetings already in the diary.
Two caveats are worth stating plainly. First, the trip is not, at least on the face of it, a Barcelona trip — no meeting with the club has been arranged. Second, the transfer window is shut, so nothing can be formally agreed today regardless of who sits down with whom. But Mendes has been one of Barcelona’s most useful allies through some genuinely difficult financial years, the relationship is excellent, and an impromptu conversation is never off the table when he is in town.
Balde is his client. So is Lamine Yamal — and the contrast between the two could hardly be sharper. While Balde waits for a first appearance, Lamine is producing the best football of his career, scoring twice at Levante and openly making his case for the Ballon d’Or. One Mendes client is trying to work out how to get on the pitch; the other is trying to work out how to win the biggest individual prize in the sport.
The conversation Balde has already had
What makes the situation more complicated is that Balde has already chosen once. In the closing days of the summer window he spoke directly with Flick, made clear he wanted to stay, and said he believed he could turn things around. That was a decision taken with the pecking order already shifting beneath him — Flick’s call to move Balde down the order came late, leaving the player little time to react or find an alternative even if he had wanted one.
Deco, meanwhile, has publicly insisted Balde remains part of the squad. That is the sporting director’s job, and it is not necessarily a hollow line; we covered Deco’s verdict on Balde’s lack of minutes earlier this month. But there is a gap between being part of a squad and being part of a team, and Balde has spent six matches on the wrong side of it.
Three and a half months to decide
The difference between September and August is time. Balde now has roughly three and a half months before the January window opens — long enough to force his way back in, and long enough to plan an exit if he cannot.
The route back is narrow but it exists. Barcelona face a congested run of fixtures across La Liga and the Champions League league phase, and Flick has already shown he will rotate. Espart is 19 and will have dips; Sunday itself offered a reminder, with the youngster’s misplaced pass handing Iván Romero the goal that turned a comfortable 3-0 into a nervier afternoon. Flick took the blame for that one himself, saying he had intended to make the change earlier and chose to wait.
A left-back who has not played since the summer does not become first choice on the back of one opposition error, though. Balde needs minutes to prove he deserves minutes, which is the circular problem every out-of-favour player faces. If Flick does not blink in the next few weeks, the January conversation becomes unavoidable — and a loan with an eye on a permanent move is the kind of solution that suits everybody, including a Barcelona side that has spent years managing its wage bill with one eye on LaLiga’s salary limit.
What happens next
Barcelona travel to face Racing in midweek, another chance for Flick to spread the load across a squad that has so far looked unbothered by the schedule. Whether Balde is among those handed a rare start will say a good deal more about his standing than any agent’s flight plan.
For now, the facts are simple and slightly brutal. A 22-year-old Catalan who came through the club’s own academy is the odd man out in the best Barcelona team of the Flick era. Liverpool have noticed. His agent is in town. And the clock to January has already started.
