Flick on Balde stopped being a matter of interpretation on Sunday evening. For days, the most awkward question of Barcelona’s summer — what exactly is going on with Alejandro Balde — had been answered by everyone except the man who picks the team. Then, shortly before the Blaugrana’s first league game of the season at the Estadio Manuel Martínez Valero, Hansi Flick walked up to a Movistar microphone and answered it himself.
“I spoke with Alejandro Balde this morning,” the German said, in comments carried by Mundo Deportivo. “I told him that he is not at one hundred percent, that it is better that he stays at home, and that we will talk later.”
It is the first time Flick has publicly given a reason for leaving out a player whose future has dominated the Barça news cycle since midweek. It is also, on the face of it, a different reason from the one that was being reported hours earlier. Here is what we know, what is being claimed, and where the two accounts do not meet.
- The exact words Flick used about Balde, and the one subject he refused to touch
- Why Xavi Espart, and not João Cancelo, filled the left-back slot
- What MARCA say is now sitting on Balde’s table — and which club is said to be in front
- The conflict between “not at one hundred percent” and Sunday morning’s reporting
- What realistically happens in the closing stretch of the window
Background: how Balde ended up outside the squad
Flick named 23 players for the trip south and Balde was not among them. Neither were Marc Casadó nor Héctor Fort, two more squad members widely expected to move before the window shuts. We covered the list in full when it landed on Sunday morning, in Barcelona’s squad for Elche.
At that point the framing was clear enough. Mundo Deportivo’s Sergi Solé, and Barça Blaugranes, reported the omission as a technical decision by the coach rather than something the 22-year-old had asked for, and specifically not an injury. Cadena SER, relayed by Barça Universal, added that Balde had no intention of leaving and wanted to fight for his place.
That reporting sat on top of days of movement around the player. Jorge Mendes has been working in Barcelona; Benfica are reported by Record to have pulled out over Barça’s asking price; Aston Villa and Manchester United have both been named as interested. Diario SPORT, via Barça Universal, framed Balde as one of three players from whom the club hope to raise close to €100m before the deadline, a plan we broke down in our piece on Barcelona’s planned player sales. Balde’s contract runs to 2028.
What Flick on Balde actually said — and what he did not
“Not at one hundred percent”
Mundo Deportivo’s Laura Aparicio reports that Flick confirmed he spoke to Balde on Sunday morning and took the decision that the full-back would not travel. The wording matters. Flick did not say Balde was injured. He said he was not at one hundred percent, that staying at home was the better option, and that the two of them would speak again. It is the language a manager reaches for when the reason is partly physical, partly something else, and he does not intend to separate the two in public.
He then declined to go anywhere near the market. Mundo Deportivo note that Flick refused to engage with transfer questions and confined himself to justifying the absence on the basis of the player’s condition. That is consistent with his position at Saturday’s pre-match press conference, where, asked to guarantee Balde’s continuity, he answered that Balde is “a player of immense quality” and that what mattered was whether he is “confident he can compete in his position” — comments we unpacked in our report on that press conference. Flick has still never publicly said he has doubts about Balde. That framing belongs to third parties.
The Espart call
The absence had an immediate consequence in the XI. Barça announced their line-up on Sunday evening — confirmed by the club and relayed by Barça Universal — and it read: Joan García; Eric García, Christensen, Gerard Martín, Espart; Fermín, Bernal, Gavi; Lamine Yamal, Adeyemi, Raphinha. Xavi Espart, a right-back by trade, took the left-back berth. Cancelo, signed permanently on 20 August and since registered by LaLiga, started on the bench.
Mundo Deportivo’s Joan Poquí called Gavi the surprise of the night, the midfielder having played only around half an hour at the Joan Gamper Trophy, and flagged the absence of Jules Koundé from the XI as significant after he started at centre-back against Al Ahly. But the Espart selection is the one that speaks to Balde. Flick preferred an academy right-back, out of position, to a Portugal international the club had committed to days earlier. We profiled Espart’s rise in our feature on the La Masia full-back.
Three offers, and a frontrunner
While Flick was talking about fitness, the market was moving. Barça Universal, relaying MARCA, report that Mendes arrived in Barcelona this week carrying a number of offers for both Balde and Casadó, met the club’s sporting director first and then sat down with the players to lay out their options.
Per that report, Balde now has three concrete offers on the table, with Manchester United described as the frontrunners and two other clubs also keen. Crucially, the same sources insist a departure is not imminent and that his future is unlikely to be resolved for several more days. None of it is club-confirmed and no bid has been reported as formally lodged.
The problem: two accounts that do not sit easily together
This is where a Culer is entitled to feel briefed in two directions at once. On Sunday morning, the story was a coaching decision with no injury attached. On Sunday evening, the coach himself said the player was not at one hundred percent. Both cannot be a complete description of the same choice.
There are innocent explanations. “Not at one hundred percent” can cover a player who is fit but short of rhythm — and Balde’s pre-season was genuinely disrupted, with Mundo Deportivo reporting groin trouble in July. It can also be the kindest public form of words available to a manager who has left out a player for reasons he does not want to litigate before a league opener. Flick chose it, and then chose to say nothing else.
What should not be done is to convert either version into a verdict on Balde’s future. Fabrizio Romano, via Barça Universal, reported at the weekend that the player feels the club keep trying to settle his future while he remains happy at Barça and wants to fight for his place. Mundo Deportivo’s Roger Torelló has him keeping his ambition to succeed at the club and only reconsidering if the club tell him he is not in the plans. Barça Universal have been explicit that the club are not forcing him out.
What happens next
Three things are worth watching. The first is Thursday. Barça’s rearranged opening fixture against Athletic Club falls on 27 August at the Spotify Camp Nou, and whether Balde is in that squad — and whether Cancelo displaces Espart — will say more than any briefing. The second is the price. Barça have held at around €40m minimum, which is why Record report Benfica walked away and why Aston Villa were said to need a sale of their own first. If Manchester United genuinely lead the race, they will have to meet a number nobody has yet met.
The third is Deco’s wider plan. A Balde sale is the domino that funds the rest of it: the centre-back file, the left-back file, the No 9 the sporting director has said publicly will arrive. Mundo Deportivo counted ten days of window left on Sunday. That is not long to sell a Spain international at a premium and replace him.
The bottom line
Flick on Balde, in his own words, was a fitness call and nothing more. Everything around it — the squad omission, Espart at left-back, Mendes working three offers, United in front — suggests a situation moving faster than that sentence admits. Until the club or the player says otherwise, both readings survive, and neither is a decision. Follow the rest of our Barcelona transfer coverage as the deadline closes.
