{"id":13752,"date":"2025-07-16T08:35:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T08:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/13752\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T08:35:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T08:35:08","slug":"selling-marc-casado-now-would-be-a-mistake-by-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/13752\/","title":{"rendered":"Selling Marc Casado now would be a mistake by Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"JHt4s6\">In the end, Marc Casado\u2019s 24\/25 campaign <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcablaugranes.com\/2025\/3\/18\/24388522\/barcelona-confirm-how-long-marc-casado-will-be-out-for-with-knee-injury\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">disappointingly fizzled out<\/a> after he sustained a partial tear of the lateral collateral ligament in his right knee on March 16 during the game against Atletico Madrid.<\/p>\n<p id=\"HaCY7T\">He missed 14 matches though was available again by the end of the season, evidencing a clear desire to want to get back to helping the squad and team as quickly as possible. You wouldn\u2019t expect anything less from the committed midfielder.<\/p>\n<p id=\"6HvEpv\">Before injury curtailed his campaign, Casado had enjoyed a strong breakout season but then lost his place to Frenkie de Jong once the Dutchman had returned to fitness after continued ankle problems.<\/p>\n<p id=\"wxhqdS\">Competition for places in midfield is going to be a recurring theme in the coming campaign and is probably why the rumor mill has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.barcablaugranes.com\/2025\/3\/18\/24388522\/barcelona-confirm-how-long-marc-casado-will-be-out-for-with-knee-injury\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">churning out talk of a possible summer exit for Casado<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p id=\"J8tMCx\">He will know better then anyone now that he has to bring his level up ahead of the 25\/26 season and keep it there if he wants to put any transfer talk to bed.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\"   alt=\"Athletic Club v FC Barcelona - La Liga EA Sports\" loading=\"lazy\" data-upload-width=\"5000\" width=\"5000\" height=\"3333\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2217849360.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        Photo by Juan Manuel Serrano Arce\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p id=\"9OxVuy\">Marc Bernal will return to the fold after his own knee concerns, which kept him out for almost the entire season. Not to mention the other midfielders who can all do a job for Hansi Flick in defensive midfield, depending on the formation he prefers.<\/p>\n<p id=\"mRoK67\">Casado\u2019s aim has to be to become the de facto holding midfielder for the starting XI moving forward, and if he\u2019s given enough playing time next season, there\u2019s every reason to believe that he can do just that.<\/p>\n<p id=\"cupFoU\">However, therein lies the rub. Will he get enough game time?<\/p>\n<p id=\"eEzT4g\">Bernal, often compared &#8211; perhaps unfairly &#8211; to a young Sergio Busquets &#8211; is almost certain to be the first choice in the defensive midfield position when fully fit, leaving Casado to either play alongside him in a double pivot or, more likely, sat on the bench and ready to provide the odd cameo here and there.<\/p>\n<p id=\"Qr4let\">If Casado\u2019s not able to make any headway whatsoever with Flick then, the 21-year-old can be forgiven for eyeing a move away in 12 months\u2019 time &#8211; but not before.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\"   alt=\"FC Barcelona v Villarreal CF - La Liga EA Sports\" loading=\"lazy\" data-upload-width=\"2857\" width=\"2857\" height=\"3571\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2215890398.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        Photo by Judit Cartiel\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p id=\"UpItHF\">By then he will know whether there\u2019s a genuine chance to make a name for himself at Barcelona or not.<\/p>\n<p id=\"M610RP\">Solidity in defensive attributes has to be a recurring theme because goals (just one in his entire career) isn\u2019t his forte.<\/p>\n<p id=\"2iI3WW\">Simply put, if he\u2019s given his chance either at the start of the season or midway through, he needs to grab it with both hands, and make it an easy choice to keep him in the side once he\u2019s won his place in the starting XI.<\/p>\n<p id=\"7pYJHz\">You don\u2019t change a winning team, even if that means keeping fan favourites sidelined.<\/p>\n<p id=\"ZKqOu7\">The tour of Japan and South Korea is unlikely to tell us much in terms of Flick\u2019s thinking for the league season but it will give every player he uses the chance to stake a claim.<\/p>\n<p id=\"pU4Fo5\">Though Casado isn\u2019t yet at the last chance saloon, he has drifted to the periphery of the squad at this point, and his only focus should be on ensuring that when the first ball of the new season is kicked against Mallorca, that he is part of proceedings.<\/p>\n<p id=\"Nr1cHX\">It could be a long, hard road for him otherwise&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the end, Marc Casado\u2019s 24\/25 campaign disappointingly fizzled out after he sustained a partial tear of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[571,422,418,1480,5315,423,5957,13272,4215,424,4214,13271,13270,4213,403,99,4808],"class_list":["post-13752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-a","tag-barca","tag-barcelona","tag-barcelona-la-liga","tag-be","tag-blaugranes","tag-by","tag-cant-del-blog-barcelona-opinion","tag-casado","tag-front-page","tag-marc","tag-mistake","tag-now","tag-selling","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-would"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}