Jules Kounde Barcelona exit talk was supposed to be finished for the summer. It is not. Kounde spent most of Hansi Flick’s first season as one of the first names on the team sheet, but with the transfer window into its closing stretch the France international is not guaranteed a starting place in either of the two positions he plays — and, according to Catalunya Radio, Barcelona would be willing to accept a good offer for him if one arrived.
Laia Tudel of Catalunya Radio reports that Flick sat Kounde down during pre-season and spelled out a new role. It is the clearest indication yet that the defender’s standing at the Spotify Camp Nou has shifted, and it has reopened a conversation Kounde himself tried to close in June.
What you’ll learn in this piece:
- What Flick is reported to have told Kounde during pre-season
- Why Eric García’s rise has changed the right-back picture
- Where Kounde now sits in the centre-back pecking order
- What Barcelona’s position is said to be if an offer arrives
- What a sale would mean for a back line already thinned by Ronald Araújo’s departure
From certainty to question mark
Kounde arrived from Sevilla as a centre-back and was gradually converted into Barça’s regular right-back, one of the defining tactical decisions of his time in Catalonia. He was good at it, too — good enough that the position stopped being a debate.
That began to change last season. As Barça Universal note, Kounde’s prominence has been declining since then, and part of that is down to the significant progress of Eric García, who took the starting role at right-back and has kept it. Eric confirmed the arrangement himself after the Joan Gamper Trophy, explaining that Flick had told him he wanted his primary position to be right-back.
The Gamper line-up backed that up. Against Al Ahly at the Spotify Camp Nou on 19 August, Eric started at right-back and Kounde started in the middle of the defence alongside Gerard Martín — a preview, it now seems, of how Flick intends to use him.
All of this is happening in a defence that has already lost a great deal. Ronald Araújo left for Liverpool on a season-long loan with a €55 million option, and Marc-André ter Stegen departed for Ajax on loan. Raphinha has since been named first captain, on Flick’s own provisional designation, with the squad vote deferred until the window shuts. The club’s only defensive addition has been João Cancelo, signed permanently to 2029 and registered in time for Elche; no centre-back has been bought.
The conversation Flick had with Kounde
Eric García is the No. 1 right-back
According to Tudel on Catalunya Radio, carried in English by both Barça Universal and Barça Blaugranes, Flick spoke to Kounde during pre-season to explain the new role directly. The message was that he will not be the starting right-back this season, with Eric ahead of him, and that when Kounde does play it will more often be at centre-back than at full-back.
That is not a small adjustment. It is a rewriting of the job description of a player who had made that flank his own, and it is the same shift we covered on 20 August when Eric was confirmed at right-back — only now with the coach’s private conversation attached to it.
Centre-back is not the safety net it looks like
The obvious response is that Kounde knows the centre of defence perfectly well. He established himself there before joining Barcelona and it is where he began his career at the highest level, so a move inside should be a comfortable landing.
The reporting says otherwise. Barça Blaugranes write that Kounde was also told he would not be first choice in the middle, with Pau Cubarsí and Gerard Martín the preferred pairing and Andreas Christensen another option behind them. Barça Universal frame it the same way: Cubarsí and Gerard Martín are currently ahead of him in the pecking order.
Sunday night at the Martínez Valero offered a small illustration. In the 5-0 win over Elche, Flick paired Christensen with Gerard Martín. Cubarsí did not feature at all, having only recently returned to training after a World Cup in which, per Barça Universal, he did not rest a single minute. Even with Cubarsí left on the bench, Kounde was not the man who stepped into that partnership.
The result is a genuinely unusual position for a player of his standing: no longer the first-choice right-back, and without a guaranteed place at centre-back either.
Why a Jules Kounde Barcelona exit is suddenly on the table
Tudel’s second line is the one that will travel furthest. Tudel reports that if Kounde receives a good offer, Barcelona would be willing to accept it — which means his future beyond September can no longer be assumed.
It is worth being precise. Neither report describes a bid, a club, a fee or an agent meeting. This is a stated willingness to sell into the right offer, sourced to one journalist. It is a long way from a transfer.
The case for keeping him
There is a strong argument that none of this should end with a sale, and Kounde has already made part of it himself. Speaking in June at the World Cup, where Barça Blaugranes note he played down talk of a move, he was unambiguous about where he expected to be.
“I have a contract until 2030. In my mind, that’s quite clear. With the French national team, those things come second. I’m focused on the competition until further notice. I’m at Barça and I hope to stay there.”
The sporting case is just as direct. Barcelona’s cover in the middle is already stretched. Araújo is at Anfield, no centre-back has been bought, and Christensen — for all the encouragement of his display at Elche — managed only 24 appearances across the previous two campaigns, six of them as a starter, in a run Barça Universal put down to persistent injury, including a partial tear of the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee that kept him out from December. Cubarsí is being reintroduced carefully. Gerard Martín started at Elche and has done little wrong, but no defender plays every minute of a season that includes a Champions League campaign.
Then there is Alejandro Balde. ESPN report that Manchester United would prefer a loan for 2026-27 with an option to buy the following summer, while Barcelona want a permanent sale in the €30-40 million range and have an intention to reinvest part of that in another defender. Our own breakdown of that standoff sets out where the two clubs currently disagree. If Balde goes and Kounde follows, Flick would be looking at a back line that has lost three senior defenders and added only Cancelo.
Versatility, finally, is not a demotion. A coach who can field the same player at right-back and centre-back in the same week has an asset, not a problem — and Flick used exactly that flexibility at the Gamper.
What the rest of the window could look like
The honest answer is that nothing is imminent. Barcelona are not shopping Kounde; the reporting is that they would accept the right offer, which is a different thing, and no offer has been reported. Barça Blaugranes put it at “just about a week left in the window” — their framing, not a confirmed deadline.
What makes it live is that Barça are themselves active at the back. SPORT report that Deco and Atlético Madrid’s Mateu Alemany are competing for Racing Santander’s Jorge Salinas, a young defender who can play at left-back and centre-back, with Racing refusing to negotiate below his €16 million release clause. We looked at Salinas and the wider shortlist in our piece on Barcelona’s Balde replacement plan. A club weighing a €16m clause for a versatile defender is not a club planning to run short — but it is a club whose defensive budget could be reshaped very quickly by an exit.
The next real evidence arrives on Thursday. Barcelona host Athletic Club at the Spotify Camp Nou at 21:00 on 27 August in the rearranged opening-round fixture, their first home league game of the season. Whether Kounde starts, where he starts, and who partners him will tell Culers more than another day of window chatter.
The bottom line
Kounde has not asked to leave, has not been told to leave, and has a contract to 2030. What has changed is that Flick has told him, in person, that neither of his positions is his by right — and that Barcelona, per Catalunya Radio, would accept a good offer if one came. With a defence this thin and the market still open, that is a story worth watching rather than a deal worth calling. Keep an eye on Thursday’s team sheet.
