At the same time as the 26 footballers he has taken Quique Setién to Lisbon jumped onto the playing field of the Da Luz stadium to prepare for the quarterfinal match of the Champions League against Bayern, another six exercised in the Ciutat Esportiva. There had to be nine, but in the end three have fallen off the list. Jean Clair Todibo tested positive for covid19 in tests carried out on Tuesday, while Carles Aleñá reported that he had been in direct contact with a positive in recent days. In both cases it was decided to activate the security protocol and start confinement, although in the case of the Mataró midfielder the test results were negative.
On the other hand, Francisco Trincao was unable to exercise with his new team due to bureaucratic problems, the club officially announced.
Thus, the new athletes trained in field number 2 of the Ciutat Esportiva. Pedro and Matheus Fernandes, as well as the loaners Rafinha Alcántara, Juan Miranda, Moussa Wagué and Oriol Busquets. This Friday they are scheduled to exercise again at 09:00, waiting for Trincao to finish solving his papers and join training.
This group of seven players will start the preseason as of today apart from the first team. Obviously in some cases a way out will be sought before the return of the first team from the holidays. Players like Wagué, Busquets, Miranda and Rafinha do not count in the sports direction for next season, while there are doubts about Aleñá and Matheus. Pedri's future is also unclear, so the final decision will depend a lot on his performance in the preseason, and the offers the club receives for a theoretical loan.
The only player who today has full assurance that he will be part of the first team next season is Sporting de Braga winger Trincao. who will join Bosnian striker, Miralem Pjanic, as the two great reinforcements of the season, in the absence of specifying the operations of Lautaro Martínez and Eric García.
And it is that Barcelona has paid 31 million euros for the Portuguese and considers that he can be an important piece when it comes to providing offensive resources to a team that has several forwards who are close to or over thirty, including Griezmann, Suárez and Messi.