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Barcelona conclude successful summer with Marlon sale

By Chiranjib Ghosh

6th August 2018,Camp Nou, Barcelona, Spain; FC Barcelona press conference to unveil new signing Arturo Vidal; Eric Abidal of FC Barcelona during the press conference (photo by Eric Alonso/Action Plus via Getty Images)
6th August 2018,Camp Nou, Barcelona, Spain; FC Barcelona press conference to unveil new signing Arturo Vidal; Eric Abidal of FC Barcelona during the press conference (photo by Eric Alonso/Action Plus via Getty Images) /
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Éric Abidal has been phenomenal this summer

Barcelona’s decision to hire Éric Abidal as the technical secretary was surprising, considering that the Frenchman was inexperienced in that role. Since his retirement, the ex-Culé had not been extensively involved in club football, other than in ambassadorial roles.

But Abidal has proven the doubters wrong, showing a brilliant acumen for negotiating profitable deals. His skill at the negotiating table exceeds that of his predecessor, Robert Fernández, who overspent on players like Jérémy Mathieu and Arda Turan.

Abidal, on the other hand, has been able to turn in a profit over every player offloaded this summer, and has even been able to sign replacements for them for less than the fee that they were signed for.

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His best achievement was moving on Yerry Mina for €32 million, allowing the club to make a profit of €20 million. He was been able to get a fair deal for Aleix Vidal, and got a very good price for Paulinho, who was signed for €40 million.

Abidal also profited the club with the sale of Gerard Deulofeu and Lucas Digne. He was also able to offload André Gomes, albeit temporarily. His signings were also far-sighted, with the average age of the new signings being around 24.

While Arturo Vidal is an adequate short-term replacement for Paulinho, Clément Lenglet and Arthur are successors to Gerard Piqué and Xavi. Abidal also took the bold step of promoting Juan Miranda to the first-team squad to replace Lucas Digne.

Marlon joins Sassuolo. dark. Next

He still needs to offload Munir and sign a successor to Luis Suárez, but that can still wait. But with the sale of Marlon Santos, the club’s summer business has concluded, and on a very positive note.