have faith<\/a> that the player\u2019s own will can make a difference.<\/p>\nThe Argentine is expected to report back for Atl\u00e9tico preseason on August 10th. The Blaugrana are said to be watching like a hawk for movement on that front. They reportedly expect Alvarez will reiterate his desire to leave.<\/p>\n
Still, even if Alvarez does make a move, Atl\u00e9tico can still say no. What\u2019s worse, the impasse becomes a risk for all parties the longer it goes on. Barcelona need to be able to sign a plan B if the deal falls through. The Madrid club need to find a replacement if he leaves. Alvarez himself will either stay in an awkward situation, or join preseason late for Bar\u00e7a. And all signs point to no quick resolution \u2014 if any comes at all.<\/p>\n
For the Catalans, the reason they are still in pursuit is twofold. One, Alvarez is their number one choice and both he and the club have worked on the signing too long to just abandon it when the going gets tough. Two, other alternatives are either unavailable or prohibitively expensive.<\/p>\n
Even strikers from the \u201csecond rung\u201d below the elite are going for a fortune. That opens up the possibility that Barcelona could even refuse to sign anyone if the Alvarez deal isn\u2019t completed. However, that possibility evaporates if Ferran Torres is sold.<\/p>\n
That would mean Barcelona have neither of their top two strikers from last season (with Robert Lewandowski having already left for Chicago Fire). In that case, they will be forced to sign at least one striker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FC Barcelona have not given up. Not yet. The Catalan club reportedly is aware that signing Juli\u00e1n Alvarez…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[49043,403,99],"class_list":["post-803245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-barcelona-transfer-rumors-news","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803245","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=803245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}