Ter Stegen and Bravo will both continue at Barcelona next season
Claudio Bravo and Marc-Andre ter Stegen, along with Jordi Masip as third choice, will continue to be Barcelona’s goalkeepers next season and work under Luis Enrique.
This affirmation could seem insubstantial and trivial, but that is not the case. FC Barcelona, in a discrete manner, have had to deal with a leak which could have become a flood. We’re referring to the situation regarding Ter Stegen.
While Bravo continues as the club’s goalkeeper in La Liga, for that reason not complaining, the German stopper has, when he’s felt the moment was right, made it clear to the club and the staff that he’s not completely happy.
He has never been satisfied with, for the second season running, Luis Enrique’s decision to rotate the goalkeepers between the three competitions. Call him an nonconformist, but Ter Stegen has rebelled against the situation and his agents have translated that to the two people at the club in charge of recruitment, Robert Fernandez, as sporting director, and Albert Soler, as director of professional football.
Neither of them, though, have succumbed to the apparent pressure which the footballer and his representatives have put on. In fact they have done the opposite, using their skills and experience to reverse a situation which, although it may not have seemed too serious from the outside, could have caused problems in the dressing room.
Barça received various offers for the 24-year-old, one of them for 20 million euros from an important club in the Premier League. Barça quickly rejected the offer because they felt, as they still feel, there is no goalkeeper like him on the market. For that reason, they do not want to sell him at the end of the season. The goalkeeper has seen, too, that his immediate future is at Barça, because he has the quality to be the club’s goalkeeper for the next decade.
In fact, if he lost his starting spot in La Liga earlier in the season when Bravo returned from injury, it was because he hasn’t convinced in his appearances, including in the Super Cups. If he had, it’s likely the roles would have been reversed and Bravo would have played in the Copa del Rey and the Champions League.
Ter Stegen has now communicated to his representatives that he wants to stay and will fight to be the goalkeeper in all competitions next season. Now, he has three games left which will be tests. Two to win La Liga and another to win the Copa del Rey.
