Barcelona Weigh Alvarez Deadline as Reports Clash

Barcelona are considering setting an Alvarez deadline, with the end of next week shaping as the point at which the club decide whether to keep waiting on Julian Alvarez or move on, SPORT reports via Barça Universal. Hansi Flick and Deco remain firmly behind the Atlético Madrid striker, but patience inside the club is thinning with LaLiga’s opening weekend closing in.

Alvarez, 26, was left out of Atlético’s squad for their friendly against Marseille, a call put down to sharpness rather than his transfer situation. The bigger test comes against Malaga on 19 August, when Diego Simeone is expected to lean on his first-choice men. The Argentine has already told Simeone he does not want to stay, and he and his representatives hope to put their case directly to chief executive Miguel Angel Gil Marin.

Mundo Deportivo report that Barcelona have not activated any alternative plan while the player holds his line — a wait that follows Flick’s last push for Alvarez.

The Alvarez deadline meets a very different story

Cadena SER, as relayed by Barça Blaugranes, carries a markedly different account: that Alvarez has told his Atlético team-mates he “made a mistake” in how he handled Barcelona’s interest, and that he now sees his future “more with Atlético de Madrid than anywhere else”.

His commitment to the shirt is total and that, for however long he has left at Atlético de Madrid, whether it’s a year, three, or two days… the club comes before everything else.

Cadena SER, on what Julian Alvarez told the Atlético dressing room

Two versions, one window, 17 days left. Barcelona’s centre-forward problem — sharpened by Robert Lewandowski’s free transfer to Chicago Fire and Ferran Torres’s agreed €50m move to Paris Saint-Germain — will not solve itself. Next week should tell the Blaugrana which report to believe.