\n<\/p>\n
Barcelona are looking to follow the \u2018Raphinha model\u2019 to sign Jo\u00e3o Pedro from Chelsea this summer.<\/strong><\/p>\n Sport report that the Brazilian striker is competing with Juli\u00e1n \u00c1lvarez to become Barcelona\u2019s new number nine in the summer transfer window.<\/p>\n The newspaper explains that Barcelona sporting director Deco is a big fan of Premier League players.<\/p>\n Having played in England himself, he believes that the \u2018intensity, speed of execution and physical demands\u2019 makes players that add positive factors to Barcelona\u2019s squad.<\/p>\n That\u2019s particularly the case because Barcelona\u2019s squad is relatively young, with constant additions from La Masia as well.<\/p>\n The Barcelona director makes frequent trips to England to evaluate players. As an agent, he brought Raphinha to the Camp Nou. He also attempted to sign Luis D\u00edaz, who has been phenomenal at Bayern Munich this season.<\/p>\n Chelsea star Jo\u00e3o Pedro is the latest name in England that he admires. In fact, he likes him so much that he is in the top two of striker put on a shortlist to reinforce Barcelona\u2019s number nine position this summer.<\/p>\n The Chelsea forward is valued for more than his prowess on the pitch. He is also considered young at 24-years-old, with great potential for growth as he\u2019s \u2018not yet reached his peak or footballing maturity\u2019.<\/p>\n In this sense, Barcelona are looking at what happened with Raphinha. He arrived from Leeds as an incomplete package and has since blossomed under Hansi Flick. Last season he was in contention for the Ballon d\u2019Or.<\/p>\n The feeling is that Jo\u00e3o Pedro is a similar profile and, crucially, is \u2018a hidden gem in the media\u2019. Barcelona could, therefore, offer him a global status and the room to grow even further.<\/p>\n Any deal would not be a cheap one, of course. Chelsea paid Brighton \u20ac63.7m last summer and he\u2019s now valued at \u20ac75m. Sport make no mention of Barcelona\u2019s stance on that front.<\/p>\n But it appears that Deco is keen on the striker, nonetheless. And Raphinha\u2019s success is potentially driving that interest further.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Barcelona are looking to follow the \u2018Raphinha model\u2019 to sign Jo\u00e3o Pedro from Chelsea this…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Deco likes Chelsea star<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Raphinha comparisons<\/strong><\/h2>\n