Alejandro Grimaldo, who came up through the FC Barcelona academy, is heading back to Spain after 10 years away. Only it’s not to Barça, he’s reportedly going to be playing for Atlético Madrid.
Grimaldo, who played with Barcelona’s B team for four years after four years in the Barcelona academy, made a name for himself after moving to Benfica and then Bayer Leverkusen. He was even nominated for the Ballon d’Or after the Germans’ undefeated Bundesliga title run in 2024.
The Valencia-born left-back also
won Euro 2024 with Spain and is with La Roja at the ongoing FIFA World Cup. However, he has been mostly a substitute with the national team.
Given his connection to Barcelona, and the fact that the Catalans have looked at fullback signings more than once over the years, Grimaldo has been a frequent target of transfer speculation regarding a move back to Camp Nou.
It seems such a homecoming will not materialize. Atlético reportedly turned their attention to Grimaldo after Marc Cucurella, another La Masia graduate, signed for Real Madrid. Now, reports say Grimaldo’s transfer is almost fully done for around 20 million euro.
With Alejandro Balde and (hopefully) João Cancelo, Barça have two left-backs and may not need another. However, they could conceivably sign another left-back and then either sell Balde, or move Cancelo to right-back. If they chose the latter, Eric García could be moved to another position.
There was some speculation that Barcelona would make a play for Grimaldo and shuffle the squad to accommodate him, but that speculation never turned to real action. All signs currently point to Grimaldo signing to Atléti, with Barcelona not too fussed about the situation.
