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Alvaro Morata of Atletico Madrid is a striker, and Barcelona head coach Xavi has stated that he was eager to get him to Camp Nou.
Robert Lewandowski, who topped the La Liga scoring charts with 23 strikes en route to winning the top level last season, has been leading the Blaugrana line for the past 1.5 seasons.
Despite four players scoring more goals than him, notably Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham, who leads the league with eleven goals, the former Bayern Munich star has already achieved a creditable seven goals in the current top flight campaign.
Barcelona is the lowest scorers among the top five in La Liga with a total of 27 goals from 14 games played. They trail Real Madrid and Girona by seven points.
Joao Felix, a loan signing from Atletico Madrid, helped Xavi’s team bolster their offence throughout the summer. Raphinha, Ferran Torres, and 16-year-old Lamine Yamal provide further alternatives in the final third.
Xavi disclosed to reporters during a recent press conference that he had talks with Morata, despite Lewandowski being the only true senior centre-forward at the team.
Although the Barcelona manager waxed poetic about Morata’s unique attributes and “world-class” relationship with Antoine Griezmann, he also acknowledged that a summer transfer was not realistic.
“I really did want to sign him. That was a possibility. Goal cites Xavi as saying, “I was talking to him and I wanted him in the team, but it couldn’t happen.”
I’m a big fan of this forward. Morata is an excellent striker. He is a kind football player who puts in a lot of work for the club.
“He enters gaps with great skill and greatly aids his teams. I’m a big fan of his. He and [Antoine] Griezmann provide Atletico a top-notch front line.”
Throughout his career, the well-traveled Morata has had trouble settling at different teams. He has had mixed results with Real Madrid and Chelsea, who in 2019 loaned him to Atletico for eighteen months.
That following summer, the 31-year-old’s move to Wanda Metropolitano was made permanent for a fee of £30 million; however, he was loaned back to Juventus for a two-year period, meaning he missed the majority of Atletico’s La Liga title victory in 2020–21.
Nevertheless, Morata scored a solid 15 goals for Diego Simeone’s squad in all competitions the previous season, and he is off to a great start in 2023–24 with 12 goals and three assists from 17 games.
The Spain international has scored five goals in the Champions League this season, tying Rasmus Hojlund of Manchester United and Erling Haaland of Manchester City for the most. With 123 games played, he has now netted 49 goals and provided 12 assists for Atletico.
Morata’s deal with Atletico Madrid expires in the summer of 2026. On Sunday, at Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys, the striker will square off against Barcelona in a thrilling La Liga match.
