Barcelona are looking to prevent players from competing at Euro 2024 and the Olympics, in a bid to protect their squad from injuries.
The troubled Catalan outfit sit eight points behind Real Madrid in the league, with incumbent boss Xavi Hernandez already confirmed to be leaving at the end of the season. While they're technically not out of the title race and one of the stronger competitors on their side of the Champions League draw, Barça have been widely labelled as in the midst of a crisis at current.
La Liga have decreased the club's salary cap recently, with chiefs at Camp Nou looking for smart ways to save money – such as producing kit in-house. Barcelona's squad has relied heavily on academy prospects this term and with La Masia grads Gavi and Ansu Fati suffering bad injuries in their development, sporting director Deco is looking to limit the number of minutes his players are subject to.
In an interview with Cadena SER radio show, Què T'hi Jugues, the Portuguese former playmaker said, “We don't want any player to go to the Euros and the [Olympic] Games,” adding, “The federation [RFEF] knows it, but we have to talk to the players and manage it.”
Euro 2024 runs from June 14 to July 14, with the Olympics in Paris scheduled to start on July 26. While the Olympics are essentially a youth competition for footballers with a cap on over-age players, Barcelona starlets Pau Cubarsi and Lamine Yamal are both first-team regulars under Xavi who have been tipped for selection for Spain in both competitions.
Xavi himself has weighed in on the matter, too, stating that he wants to avoid another “Pedri case” with his players, referring to 2021 when the midfielder went to both the Euros and the Olympics in Tokyo, Japan – playing a whopping 73 games across eight competitions over the course of a single season.
Barcelona have previous with stopping high-profile players from attending the Olympics. In 2008, the club originally vetoed 21-year-old Lionel Messi from attending the Games in Beijing with Argentina, only for new manager Pep Guardiola to fight his employers over the decision, citing his own experience of winning gold in 1992 as formative for him as a player.
Just like his manager, Messi won the competition. It seems Cubarsi and Lamal will not be given the same opportunity.
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