Xavi Hernández must already think of a substitute for Piqué, since the central defender becomes more veteran every day and it is important for the team to have a quality central defender who can replace him when he is not around.
In this sense, the confrontation against Napoli for the round of 32 of the Europa League served as a light for the Spanish strategist, as he found the ideal candidate to reinforce the defense in the Italian team.
With a superlative participation in the first leg, Kalidou Koulibaly, who has already been in the sights of important clubs in Europe, aroused Xavi’s interest, as the Catalunya Radio journalist, Ricard Torquemada, reported.
The center of 30 years old, who recently won the African Cup with Senegal, is one of the references in defense of Napoli and is valued as one of the best defenders in Serie A in Italy.
Unfortunately for Barcelona there is a detail that complicates the transaction a bit, and that is that the Senegalese has one year left on his team’s contract, and given that the club plans to put all its efforts into the summer market to try to sign Haaland, it is unlikely that they can spend a significant amount of money for Koulibaly, unless Napoli are willing to negotiate.
Koulibaly has already rejected important offers from teams like PSG and Manchester City in the past, however, there seems to be some attraction with Barcelona. In fact, before the match between Barcelona-Napoli at the Camp Nou, the Italian newspaper ‘La Gazzetta dello Sport’ published the Spanish team’s interest in the Senegalese defender.
You may also be interested in:
Barcelona pronounces on the Ukraine-Russia conflict and then eliminates Napoli from the Europa League with three great goals
Neymar confessed that he wanted to return to Barcelona: “We tried everything but it was not possible”