Coronavirus has paralyzed almost all soccer leagues in the world. And in Europe, the situation is critical due to the pandemic, especially in two of the countries that have the most competitive powers on the continent. Italy and Spain are going through a health crisis due to the impact that the COVID-19 generated in its territory.
Beyond the medical situation, and awaiting the advance of the pandemic to find out whether sports activity will resume or not, the clubs take advantage of the time to advance towards the next 2020-2021 season. And if we talk about the European transfer market, there are two main players who will be in the news in the coming months.
Barcelona and Lautaro Martínez. As they have already made it clear from the Barcelona leader, the culé institution has as its main objective the hiring of the Argentine striker who today plays for Inter Milan. With a clause close to 110 million euros, the club led by Josep Maria Bartomeu accelerated negotiations with the environment of the ex-footballer Racing and now all that remains is to reach an agreement with his Italian peers.
With the latent desire to be able to share a team with Lionel Messi, his partner in the Argentine team, Lautaro would have made a special request to finish giving Barça the final go-ahead: As indicated on its cover by the sports newspaper Sport, from Spain, Martínez has decided to move from Milan to Barcelona on the condition that they assure him that he will start in Quique Setién's team.
In addition, another of the requests of the tip born in the city of Bahía Blanca is that the negotiation between the clubs is on good terms. According to the Catalan media, Lautaro does not want to force his departure with strident statements in the media, quite the contrary. By way of thanks to the team led by Antonio Conte, who bet on him two seasons ago, Martínez wants the negotiations to take place from club to club and that his current institution receive the money they request for his pass.
Waiting for the development of the health crisis in the country, added to the supposed approval of the player after they assured him will be a key piece in the new version of Barcelona, the technical secretariat of the Blaugrana institution has only one concern to finish closing the signing of the Argentine. According to Italian media in recent days, Pep Guardiola's Manchester City reportedly had contacts with his Inter peers to send them an offer for Martinez.
Until the season was paralyzed by the coronavirus effect, the numbers validated the great campaign that the Argentine striker had in the Neroazzurro: in 31 games played, the bahiense scored 16 goals -average of 0.60- and added 5 goal passes to his statistics. With 26 matches played, and 12 dates from the end of the Italian Serie A, Inter were one unit from Juventus (63 against 62) from the top of the local tournament.
Beyond the alleged desire of the Spanish coach to have the services of Lautaro, the 22-year-old would have decided to move to Barcelona with the intention of sharing the field from minute 1 of the game with his national team captain.