Ten days from the deadline, Barcelona have a Balde replacement plan. Three of them, in fact. Hansi Flick spent Saturday afternoon declining to guarantee the futures of Alejandro Balde or Jules Kounde. Diario SPORT report that Deco has already drawn up three separate routes for rebuilding the left side if Balde goes. And on Sunday morning, Mundo Deportivo added a name to the shortlist: Jorge Salinas, a 19-year-old left-back at Racing valued at around €16m.
None of it is a signing yet. All of it is connected. Here is what the reporting actually says:
- Why Flick’s press conference changed the temperature around Balde
- Deco’s three routes — buy a deputy, move Gerard Martin, or promote Jordi Pesquer
- The Jorge Salinas file: €16m, Jorge Mendes and a possible double operation
- How a Balde sale is the thing that unlocks Castello Lukeba
- The gap between Barca’s asking price and what anyone has actually offered
How Barca’s left-back question got here
Balde, 22, is contracted to 2028 and started at the Joan Gamper Trophy. He is also a La Masia left-back who has watched the club re-sign a specialist in his position on a permanent deal: Joao Cancelo’s move was confirmed until June 2029, and Mundo Deportivo note that Balde lost his starting place after Cancelo’s winter loan arrival the season before.
Then came Friday and Saturday. Jorge Mendes — Balde’s agent — met the player in Barcelona and laid out the offers on the table. Flick was then asked directly whether he counts on the 22-year-old. “It’s a difficult question,” the German answered. “Balde has enormous quality and, for me, what I said before is important: you have to have the conviction to fight for your place. I want to see that from all my players.” On the wider group in the departure lounge, per Mundo Deportivo: “It’s a club situation, we are making a lot of changes. We have to wait until the end of the market… We were clear with these players and now we have to wait.”
That was the moment the story turned from speculation into planning — and we covered the two competing readings of it at the time.
Deco’s three Balde replacement plans
According to Diario SPORT, carried by Barca Universal, the sporting department has mapped three ways to rebuild the left side without him. They are not mutually exclusive, and each one has a different knock-on effect on the centre-back budget.
1. Sign a direct deputy for Cancelo
The simplest route. Because Cancelo is already installed as the starter, Barca do not need a proven replacement — they need a cheap, young alternative who can be coached into the role over a season or two. That is a materially different shopping list from the one they would need if Cancelo were not there, and it is the reason a €16m teenager is even in the conversation.
2. Move Gerard Martin back to left-back
Martin arrived as a full-back and has made his name as a centre-back, where he is currently Barca’s only natural left-footed option in the middle. Pushing him back out to the flank solves the Cancelo-deputy problem for nothing — but it opens a hole in central defence that would then have to be filled in the market. In other words, this plan does not save money; it moves the spend from left-back to centre-back.
3. Trust Jordi Pesquer
The cheapest option of the three. Pesquer, 17, impressed Flick during pre-season to the point that Balde only reclaimed the left-back spot at the Gamper after the younger man’s progress had been noticed. SPORT’s reading is that promoting him would free up essentially the whole Balde fee for a centre-back to partner Pau Cubarsi. It is also, self-evidently, the riskiest thing to do in the first month of a title defence.
The Jorge Salinas file
The specific name attached to plan one is Salinas. Mundo Deportivo’s Roger Torello reports that the 19-year-old Racing left-back, valued at €16m, is liked at the club and that a left-back signing sits alongside a centre-back signing on the conditional list — conditional, in both cases, on an exit.
Everything Barca add the mechanics, reporting that Deco met Mendes directly to discuss the deal. That detail matters because Mendes represents Salinas and Balde, which in theory gives one agent the levers for a double operation: a sale out and a signing in. Racing, per the same report, have been firm all summer about not entertaining anything below the €16m release clause in the teenager’s contract, with Atletico Madrid and Manchester United also credited with interest and the player said to be sold on the idea of the Spotify Camp Nou.
The name is not new to this beat — Salinas was prioritising a move to Barca earlier this year, when the sticking point was the same clause. What has changed is that there is now a vacancy scenario to justify triggering it.
The counter-argument: the money does not add up
Every version of this plan starts with a Balde sale, and that is precisely the part nobody has delivered. SPORT, via Barca Universal, report that Aston Villa and Benfica have asked about his situation and Barca’s asking price, said to be in the €40-45m range. Benfica want a centre-back and a left-back but their opening proposal would be unlikely to exceed €20m. Villa want a high-level left-back but do not currently have the budget without selling first. Manchester United have spoken to Mendes without making a concrete approach. The report’s blunt conclusion is that €40-45m looks extremely difficult to reach anywhere outside Saudi Arabia. Everything Barca put the valuation higher again, at around €50m — a spread that tells you these are estimates, not agreed figures.
And then there is Balde himself. Sources close to the player told Mundo Deportivo that he read Flick’s words as a challenge rather than a hint, that he wants to distance himself from reports treating his exit as done, and that he is highly motivated to win the starting job. The caveat is honest: if the club tell him he is not in the plans, he will not stand in the way of a move before the window shuts on 2 September. Until somebody says that to his face, he intends to keep fighting.
What happens next — and the Lukeba domino
The reason this file is worth watching even if you have no interest in reserve left-backs is what sits behind it. Torello reports that Barca have not ruled out signing a left-sided centre-back this summer, that Castello Lukeba is Flick’s preferred candidate for the job, and that his arrival depends on how much cash is in the till — which means it depends on Balde or Kounde leaving.
Lukeba, 23, is under contract at RB Leipzig until June 2029, left-footed, quick to recover and comfortable playing out from the back, and would cost well beyond €50m if Leipzig could be persuaded at all, according to Gerard Romero via Barca Universal. We set out the case and the obstacles when the link first surfaced. Nothing about it has become cheaper since.
In the meantime, life goes on as if none of it were happening. Mundo Deportivo’s projected XI for Sunday night at Elche has Gerard Martin at centre-back and Balde at left-back — the exact configuration all three of Deco’s plans are designed to replace.
The bottom line
Barca have a shortlist, a mechanism and an agent with an interest in making something happen. What they do not have is a bid for Balde at anything close to their valuation, a player asking to leave, or the money to sign Lukeba before somebody sells. Ten days is enough time for all of that to change in an afternoon — but as of Sunday morning, the three-pronged plan is a plan, not a transfer.
Reported by Roger Torello for Mundo Deportivo, Diario SPORT via Barca Universal, Everything Barca and Gerard Romero. Transfer fees and valuations are as reported by those outlets and are not club-confirmed; no bid for Alejandro Balde has been reported as lodged.
