Striker joins Barcelona in shock transfer
Martin Braithwaite
I
f there was a prize awarded
for the most surprising transfer
of 2020, Martin Braithwaite
would already be on the
winner’s podium, celebrating
a hands-down victory. Not only
did he leave Liga strugglers
Leganes for defending champions
Barcelona, he made the move outside
of the regular window after Barca were
granted special dispensation to sign a
forward following a season-ending injury
to French starlet Ousmane Dembele.
And so it was that a striker who
struggled to establish himself during two
seasons with Middlesbrough found
himself playing in the Clasico against Real
Madrid in March after a campaign spent
battling against relegation.
“It was a surprise, but at the same
time not so much because I have always
had the ambition to play at this level,”
Braithwaite said during his presentation
at Camp Nou.
“I am a strong player, fast, physical. My
main characteristic is that I like to study
the play. Barcelona play the best football
in the world. I have spent the last two
days studying the way they play and I
will keep doing it.”
As Barcelona coach Quique Setien
quite simply put it: “He fits our needs.”
A combination of injuries, bad luck and
poor transfer policy had left Barca short
of firepower. Abel Ruiz and Carles Perez
were moved on, to Braga and Roma
respectively, during the January transfer
window, despite the club being told inearly January that Luis Suarez would be
sidelined for up to four months with a
knee injury.
But Dembele’s injury – he is out for^
six months after tearing a hamstring in
training in early February – opened up
a possible loophole. Under new Liga
regulations, clubs are permitted to sign
an emergency replacement for any
player injured outside of the window.
With the transfer window closed,
Leganes’ energies were focused on their
fight to stay in the top flight, but they
were powerless to prevent Barca paying
the €20million release clause for a
player who had been their record signing
at €5m last summer.
The double whammy for Leganes wasthat not only would they be losing
their top scorer, under Liga rules they
were also unable to sign a replacement.
Braithwaite’s six league goals this season
had given them hope of avoiding the
drop and they had already also lost
another striker, with Youssef En-Nesyri
joining Sevilla in January.
Barcelona had considered an
approach for Getafe’s Angel Rodriguez
who, at between €6m and €8m, was a
cheaper option. However, at 32 he is also
four years older than Braithwaite who,
despite being seen as a short-term fix,
signed a four-and-a-half year contract.
Signed too late to play in theChampions League, and with Barca
out of the Copa del Rey, the Denmark
international would only be available for
the remaining 14 Liga games this season.
Although the expectation is that he
will feature mostly as a substitute, the
transfer represented a major upturn in
fortunes for a player who struggled to
fit in at Middlesbrough under successive
managers Garry Monk and Tony Pulis.
Loaned out to French side Bordeaux
and then Leganes, the former Toulouse
man performed well enough in La LigaHeadliners
On target...scoring
for Leganes against
MallorcaTeam-mate...he will now line up alongside stars such as Lionel Messi“It was a surprise, but at the same time not so much because I
have always had the ambition to play at this level”