Barcelona decide to sign a new goalkeeper soon – Report | OneFootball

The patellar tendon tear suffered by Marc-Andre Ter Stegen during the match against Villarreal is going to be quite a hard blow for FC Barcelona. He is not only the starting goalkeeper for the Blaugranes, but also one of the leaders of the dressing room, and replacing him will be almost impossible for the Catalans.

However, the extent of Ter Stegen’s injury allows Barcelona to use some FIFA and La Liga regulations to bring in a replacement for him. The Blaugranes were previously reported to be pondering their options of whether they should bring in a new goalkeeper or trust Inaki Pena and the youngsters to do the job going forward.

Now Spanish news outlet COPE has provided the latest update in this regard, as one of their reports claims that Barcelona have taken a middle approach between these two alternatives. The Blaugranes will sign a new goalkeeper soon, but he will arrive at the club only as a backup to Inaki Pena.

For this purpose, the Catalans are not going to wait till the next winter transfer window opens, and are only negotiating with free-agent goalkeepers. As already reported, FIFA and La Liga regulations allow Barcelona to sign a free agent in this scenario even outside of the transfer periods.

For this purpose, several well-known names have already been linked with the Catalan club, including the former Blaugrana keeper Claudio Bravo. The Manchester City goalie Stefan Ortega has been another name linked with Barcelona, as have the former Real Madrid keeper Keylor Navas and the former Juventus shotstopper Wojciech Szczęsny.

Both of the latter two individuals are reportedly ready to play for Barcelona, even though Szczęsny has already retired. Now it remains to be seen which of these players the Blaugranes ultimately sign, but the one thing that is already certain is that they will definitely miss Ter Stegen both in the goal and in the dressing room.