The last days of Marc Casadó at Barça
The footballer chose Dépor, even though the club preferred to loan him to Elche because the Valencians could assume his salary
BarcelonaIf the bright side of Barça's final days in the transfer market was Gabriel Jesus –the emergency solution that Deco found after the repeated rejections from Atlético de Madrid for Julián Álvarez–, the dark side was Marc Casadó. Highly regarded by the Barça fans after two seasons in the first team during which he clearly went from more to less, the midfielder from Sant Pere de Vilamajor ended up leaving through the back door just hours before the deadline for registering new players in La Liga.
He knew from Hansi Flick that it would be very difficult for him to get minutes with so much competition in the midfield, but he was not able to find the ideal solution for his future until the very last day. Finally, he joined Deportivo de la Coruña on loan, which, in the year of its return to the First Division –after eight years wandering between the Second Division and the Primera RFEF–, has formed a very exciting squad with the also former Barça player Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang as its main offensive draw.
Although he already made his debut with the Galician team last weekend at Villarreal's field (2-3), Casadó's presentation did not take place until this Wednesday. In his welcome press conference, the former Barça player admitted that the summer had been long and that two seasons ago, when he was playing for Barça Atlètic, he already had the option to go to Dépor. The idea satisfied him because he liked the atmosphere at Riazor, a stadium he visited as captain of the Barça reserve team in the Primera RFEF, but he ultimately turned it down because Flick called him up for the first team.
The interests converged two years after that first approach. However, the operation is not very profitable for Barça, which had intended to transfer Casadó before June 30th to record a significant capital gain in the accounts, as part of an upward trend to monetize the talent trained at La Masia. In the Camp Nou offices, in fact, it is acknowledged that the player from Vallès' resistance to moving to Saudi Arabia has contributed to a new fiscal year closing with net losses (-€18m). An income of about 20 million euros from the transfer was expected.
Clubs such as Al-Nassr and Al-Hilal appeared as real future options for the footballer, who at times, according to close sources, seriously considered the possibility of making a big financial leap for a specific time to return to Europe in a year or two. What is known as "doing a Gabriel Veiga", that is, leaving young for Saudi football and returning with deep pockets –now Veiga plays in the Champions League with Porto–. Ultimately, however, Casadó ended up discarding this path, trusting that he would find a more attractive destination.
From expecting 20 million to not even saving on the salary
As the summer progressed, the midfielder, who is part of Jorge Mendes' portfolio, had informal approaches with both Milan clubs – Milan and Inter – and with teams from Turkish football. He was also linked to Betis, which is playing in the Champions League this year and needs a larger squad so as not to collapse in the League. However, no operation ended up materializing. Thus, on the last day of the market, Dépor and also Elche appeared. Both requested the player's loan for one season. With a substantial difference: while the people from Elche – they point out from Barça – were paying his entire salary, the Galicians, without financial fair play, could not assume even a euro of it.
"He went where he wanted", assure sources from the blue and garnet club, who regretted Casadó's latest statements before embarking for A Coruña and after receiving – they underscore – every facility to leave for free – and with a 30 million euro purchase option – wherever he wanted. "We all have things to improve," declared the footballer at the departures terminal of El Prat, with a very long face after a few final days in which he felt mistreated by the club of his life. They took away his number 17 shirt, now in the hands of Anthony Gordon, and sidelined him from the call-ups and the group dynamics. Once the ordeal is over, he now hopes to demonstrate at Riazor not only that he has the level to have a career in the First Division, but also that Barça was too quick to consider him useless for the first team.