Diego Simeone has finally spoken, and the message from the other side of the Julian Alvarez Barcelona transfer standoff is that nothing has moved.
Atletico Madrid’s manager confirmed on Friday that the Argentine will play no part in his side’s match against Sevilla after a third consecutive day away from training, and insisted his own position on the summer’s most bitter saga is exactly where it was a week ago.
With the window shutting on Monday, that is the clearest signal yet that Barcelona’s pursuit of a number nine is heading for the wire.
Simeone: ‘I remain in the same position’
Facing the media ahead of Atletico’s La Liga fixture, Simeone was asked, inevitably, about almost nothing else. He did not dodge it, but he did not budge either.
“I understand that all the questions are going to be about what is happening with Julian. The club was very firm and clear in what it explained,” Simeone said, as quoted by SPORT. “I remain in the same position: waiting, from a sporting perspective, to be able to help him and for him to remain the hugely important footballer he is for us. He won’t be available tomorrow, obviously.”
The absence is not an injury. Alvarez has now missed three sessions at Atletico’s Cerro del Espino base, with the club logging the first two as “indisposition” while the temperature around him rose. He was jeered by his own supporters during Atletico’s league opener against Villarreal — the kind of reception that tends to be terminal rather than temporary.
Simeone, though, kept the door propped open. Asked whether the relationship could still be repaired, he refused to write it off.
“From the moment Julian returns to training with us, we’ll give him what we’ve always given him so that he feels important, because that’s what he is for our team,” he said.
Pressed on his preferred attacking pairing for 2026/27, the Argentine did not hesitate: “Julian Alvarez and Sorloth.” That answer carries a sting, because Alexander Sorloth is currently injured — leaving Simeone talking up a front two he cannot actually field. “His absence obviously hurts us. He is hugely important to us, and it has an even greater impact because of Julian’s situation,” he added.
How the row escalated in Monte Carlo
Simeone’s measured tone is a marked change of register from what came out of Monaco on Thursday. Barcelona vice-president Rafa Yuste travelled to the Grimaldi Forum for the Champions League draw and, by Mundo Deportivo‘s account, was filmed talking politely with Atletico president Enrique Cerezo beforehand in the spirit of a truce.
Then Atletico chief executive Miguel Angel Gil Marin went on air and unloaded on the Catalan club over its conduct in the Alvarez pursuit. Yuste’s response was immediate and unusually sharp for a man Mundo Deportivo describes as one of football’s peacemakers: Gil Marin, he said, had crossed a red line. We covered that exchange in full in our report on Yuste’s answer to Gil Marin.
It was not the first shot fired. Atletico have been combative on this since the spring, and earlier in the week the club published a statement on its own website hardening its stance that it will not negotiate with Barcelona over Alvarez — pointedly adding majority shareholder Apollo’s name to the position. Between the boardroom statement and the Monte Carlo broadside, the two clubs are no longer really negotiating. They are briefing.
Alvarez turned to the Atletico captains — and got nowhere
The most revealing detail of the week concerns what Alvarez has tried behind closed doors. According to Jijantes, cited by Mundo Deportivo, the forward went to Atletico’s captains — Koke, Jan Oblak and Gimenez — and asked them to help unlock his situation so that Barcelona could open talks.
Simeone reportedly shut that down inside the dressing room, telling his squad that the Alvarez question was a club matter and there was nothing the players could do about it. Read alongside Friday’s press conference, it fits: the manager is separating the footballer he wants from the transfer policy he does not control.
Two suitors remain in the frame if Alvarez does force his way out before Monday, with Barcelona and Arsenal the only clubs credibly linked. Atletico’s leverage is straightforward — a long contract and no obligation to sell to anybody, least of all to Barcelona.
The one route left: Real Decreto 1006
Which brings us to the mechanism that has quietly become the story. With an agreement between the clubs effectively dead, Mundo Deportivo‘s Ramon Fuentes reports that the only avenue left to Alvarez is to terminate his contract unilaterally under Spain’s Real Decreto 1006, the decree that governs the employment relationship of professional athletes in the country.
The relevant clause is article 16, which provides that where a professional athlete ends his contract of his own volition, without fault on the club’s part, the club is entitled to compensation — and, absent an agreement between the parties, that compensation is set by the labour courts, weighing sporting circumstances, the damage caused to the club, and the reasons for the rupture.
In plain terms: Alvarez could walk, and a judge would then decide the price. Barcelona, as the signing club, would be jointly liable for whatever figure the courts landed on. Crucially, Mundo Deportivo notes FIFA has no jurisdiction here, because both clubs are Spanish — this is a domestic labour matter, not an international transfer dispute.
It is a route with obvious appeal and obvious peril. The appeal is that it does not require Atletico’s consent, which is the only thing Barcelona have not been able to obtain all summer. The peril is that nobody knows the number until it is too late to walk it back, and Barcelona’s financial planning does not have much room for an open-ended court bill. Nothing suggests the player has taken that step, and it should be read for what it is: a legal possibility being discussed in the Spanish press, not a decision.
What the Julian Alvarez Barcelona transfer saga means for Flick’s number nine
Behind all of it sits the reason Barcelona have chased this so hard for so long. Hansi Flick began the season without a recognised centre-forward: Robert Lewandowski left on a free transfer and Ferran Torres was sold to PSG, and neither has been directly replaced. The summer’s attacking investment went instead on Anthony Gordon from Newcastle and Karim Adeyemi from Borussia Dortmund, both wide forwards by trade.
Flick’s answer so far has been to improvise, and to improvise well. Raphinha — Barcelona’s captain this season — has taken the false nine role and run with it, opening the scoring in Thursday’s 2-0 win over Athletic Club at the Spotify Camp Nou, with Fermin Lopez adding the second. Two matches, two wins, no goals conceded. As our piece on Raphinha’s insistence on playing as the nine set out, the Blaugrana are not exactly suffering for it.
That relative comfort is precisely why the club can afford to hold its nerve. Reports this week indicated Barcelona are already working on a striker signing for January, which tells you the sporting department has a plan that does not depend on winning a war with Atletico in the next 72 hours. Lautaro Martinez and Viktor Gyokeres have both been floated as alternatives, while inside the building there is genuine faith in young forward Hamza Abdelkarim, named in the squad for both league games so far without yet getting on.
Four days, no movement
So the state of play going into deadline day is this. Atletico will not sell. Barcelona will not stop wanting. Alvarez is not training, not in the squad to face Sevilla, and not, on the evidence of the last three days, minded to pretend everything is fine. Simeone wants him back in the building and has said so publicly, but has also made clear the decision was never his.
Unless the player takes the drastic legal option — and there is no indication he has — the most likely outcome is that the window closes with Alvarez still an Atletico player and a dressing room to repair. For Barcelona, that would mean January, or Raphinha continuing to do a job he was never signed to do. On current form, that is a far less painful fallback than it looked in June.
All transfer claims in this piece are attributed to the outlets reporting them and remain unconfirmed by either club.
