Cancelo and Fresnedo are priorities for the new Barca director

As a player, during his four-year tenure with Barcelona, ​​he won the Champions League in 2006 and two La Liga titles (2005 and 2006), and now Deco will have the task of helping Barcelona return to the leading European clubs as an official. As of this Wednesday, the Portuguese is officially in the role of sporting director of the Catalan club. For some time, Deco has been present at the Nou Camp as a scout and a sort of advisor, but now he has been officially appointed to the position of sporting director instead of Mateu Alemany.

At the beginning of the summer, it was mentioned that Alemany could go to Aston Villa with the intention of helping coach Unai Emery with the ambitious project of the Birmingham club. However, he decided to stay in Barcelona until the end of the transfer window, and the question is whether he will leave in general. Catalan Sport writes that Alemany - who arrived in March 2021 when Joan Laporta returned to the position of president - could remain as an assistant to Deco and an associate in charge of the bureaucratic part of the work when concluding the contract. Until this summer, Alemany worked closely with Jordi Cruyff, whose contract expired on June 30, after which he left Barcelona, allegedly because of his desire to return to coaching. They both had occasional disagreements with the club's first man, Joan Laporte, but managed to "swim" in troubled waters during the financial problems of the Catalan giant and formed a team that returned to the top of Spanish football. Deco will continue.

Guardiola doesn't want him, but his old club does: Cancelo is nearing a long-desired Barca move

According to many opinions, the Portuguese was promoted due to his long-term acquaintance with Laporte and Xavi, with whom he once shared the dressing room, and it is expected that he will have better communication with them and more similar thinking than his predecessors. Deco already mediated the arrival of Raphinha last summer from Leeds for 58,000,000 euros (although the Brazilian did not exactly prove to be an ideal reinforcement in the first season), but he will not be able to do much in the current transfer window. Sport writes that he has set three goals in front of himself: the completion of the previously started arrival of Joao Cancelo from Manchester City, the young Ivan Fresnedo (18) from Valladolid, and the offensive midfielder, who should fill the place in the team in case Ansu Fati leaves the club, and everything is going towards because the Spanish representative is not satisfied with the number of minutes that Xavi gives him. It seemed that it could be Joao Felix, who stated that he always wanted to play for Barcelona, ​​but the former captain of the Catalans is not particularly enthusiastic about the Atletico Madrid player.

Xavi reportedly wants Giovanni Lo Celso from Tottenham, but the Argentine is a much more expensive option and more difficult to implement because in Barcelona, they have to take care of financial fair play. As for the mentioned Fresnedo, he is a right back who would be an alternative to Cancelo and one for the future. Deco's idea is to bring him now, but also to send him somewhere on loan in order to get ahead of the competition.