Barcelona coach Hansi Flick wanted a center back in the January transfer window, but has ended up with a very different defender. Al Hilal full back Jo�o Cancelo has returned to the reigning LaLiga champions for a second loan spell, although even the signing of the Portugal international was subject to some confusion on Tuesday.
Cancelo, 31, was due to be presented as a new Bara player early in the afternoon, but with the media waiting to meet him, the scheduled time for his unveiling came and passed. In the meantime, the club deleted the official announcement of his signing from their website and social media channels.
Club sources were quick to confirm it was a bureaucratic issue; Bara had jumped the gun, arranging the presentation without having all the documents signed off. They still needed one final contribution from Cancelo's parent club, Al Hilal, before they could carry on with proceedings.
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That eventually arrived and, over four hours after initially planned, Cancelo was announced and presented. In the end. the delay was anecdotal, yet it somehow encapsulated the environment in which it often feels like Bara operate: working things out as they go.
Adding to that feeling is the fact that the cost of the Cancelo loan -- sources told ESPN the deal is worth around 4 million, including wages, until the end of the season -- is only possible within LaLiga's financial framework because of a regulation that allows Bara to use a percentage of Andreas Christensen's salary space since he is out injured for four months.
In the end, Flick gets another defender -- just not the center back sources said he had initially requested when Christensen partially tore his ACL in December.
Even before Christensen's injury, the need for defensive reinforcements had been obvious. The loss of Iigo Martnez -- Cancelo's neighbor in Saudi Arabia until this week -- to Al Nassr last summer left them looking for a new partner for teenager Pau Cubars. With Christensen perennially injured and Ronald Arajo only just returning from a mental health break, Cubars has been paired most often with either Eric Garca or converted left back Gerard Martn.
As a result, Bara have conceded 20 goals in 19 LaLiga games -- joint-most in the top five -- and but for the heroics of goalkeeper Joan Garca, it could have been more. The league leaders' expected goals against (xGA) in the Spanish top flight of 25.73 ranks 14th in the division; they have also conceded 11 goals in six Champions League games.
The January transfer window, though, is difficult at the best of times for the most well-run clubs. For Bara, with their hands tied financially, signing the left-sided center back Flick wanted was always a long shot.
That does not mean Bara did not need a full back, as Cancelo now becomes the only recognized right back in the squad. Jules Kound has played there regularly for over two years but still considers himself a center back, with Garca backing him up. On the left, a position Cancelo is also comfortable playing, Alejandro Balde is deputized by Martn, who is now needed more in the middle of the back line.
Cancelo, therefore, provides depth in a position where it is desperately required. Given how he has made his name for attacking more than defending, though, it is hard to know how he improves the team defensively. Or whether he will even be able to find a regular place in Bara's XI as he competes for a place in Portugal's World Cup squad this summer.
None of this is to say his signing should be written off. His resum illustrates what a good player he is -- Manchester City, Juventus and Inter Milan are among his former clubs. If he is used on the right behind Lamine Yamal, Bara might improve even more going forward. And that is a frightening prospect for a team that won a domestic treble last season, added another Supercopa to its trophy cabinet on Sunday with a 3-2 win over Real Madrid, are four points clear in LaLiga and still fighting for the Champions League and the Copa del Rey.
Also, after spending the 2023-24 season at the club under Xavi Hernndez, Cancelo is returning to a place he knows well, reducing any adaptation period. Sources told ESPN that many members of the current squad, including Fermn Lpez, Gavi and Arajo, are delighted to have him back.
His signing gives Flick options and increases the competition for places. Both Kound and Balde now know that if they don't perform there is a ready-made replacement waiting in the wings. Kound could even find himself as a center back again at some point, although sources suggested that is not currently part of the plan for the rest of the season.
Cancelo also returns with a point to prove. Not only is he playing for a place at the World Cup, he has unfinished business at Bara -- the only club, as he said on Tuesday, that has given him "goosebumps" when signing for them. His first loan spell ended trophyless; he does not want that to be the case this time, while there is still the chance that good performances could turn a temporary move into a permanent one.
He demonstrated his desire to return to Bara by rejecting other advances this month. Inter had been in the running, a source confirmed to ESPN, but Cancelo said that once he received an approach from Bara's sporting director Deco, he told his agent, Jorge Mendes, to get the deal done. A source said that even meant losing money.
Now he will finally get the chance to play at Camp Nou as a Bara player, having spent his previous spell with the club at the Olympic Stadium as renovation work was carried out on the club's home.
"The first thing I told my girlfriend when the opportunity came up was that I could finally get to experience playing at Camp Nou as a home player," an emotional Cancelo said on Tuesday. "I've been waiting for that for a long time. It will be beautiful -- it's even possible that I'll cry."
