Lucas Bergvall's name is doing the rounds at Barcelona once more. The Sweden midfielder's agents have gone hunting for a new club this window, with his hopes of regular football at Tottenham Hotspur fading fast.
Spanish newspaper "Sport" report that Bergvall's representatives have opened channels with several major European clubs, Barcelona among them, in a bid to find the player a way out of his tricky situation at Tottenham.
Spurs could demand around 60 million pounds to let him go. That figure has done nothing to change the thinking inside the Barcelona boardroom.
Deco settles Barcelona's position
Barcelona's board show no appetite for reopening a file they closed back in 2024, even with Bergvall's name back on the table. As far as the sporting department under Deco is concerned, the negotiation phase over the player ended for good, and there is no desire to revisit the deal.
Behind that stance lies a shift in Barcelona's current thinking on the midfield. The club want a player with different technical qualities to those Bergvall offers, with Spain's Rodri Hernández topping the list of priorities for the position and standing as the sporting department's most prominent target for the coming phase.
The door to Bergvall's departure
The move by Bergvall's agents lands at a moment when his situation at Tottenham looks more complicated than ever, following major changes to the midfield after an extremely difficult season that ended well short of the top places in the Premier League.
Tottenham signed Sandro Tonali and Matheus Fernandes, raising the competition for midfield spots and leaning on the new arrivals to fill key roles. Bergvall's route to regular minutes now looks tougher, and that has pushed his representatives to explore fresh options.
Barcelona were close to completing the deal in 2024
All of this stirs memories of a deal Barcelona nearly pulled off two years ago, when Bergvall was on the books at Sweden's Djurgården.
In 2024, Barcelona pushed their negotiations to an advanced stage to sign the young midfielder for around 7 million euros, plus 3 million in add-ons. The player had even arrived in Barcelona, met Deco and toured the club's facilities, all clear signs at the time that the transfer was almost done.
Then Tottenham entered the fray and changed everything, tabling a better financial offer to both the Swedish club and the player himself.
Barcelona chose not to match it or get drawn into a bidding war, leaving Bergvall to settle on a move to London.
Xavi Hernández, Barcelona's former manager, addressed the miss at the time, confirming that the rival club had presented a larger financial offer and that Barcelona did not want to raise their bid simply to win the race.
Barcelona's rejection was not an easy decision
Bergvall, for his part, revealed after joining Tottenham that choosing between the English club and Barcelona ranked among the hardest decisions of his career. The choice stayed open between the two for a long time, he confirmed, before he opted for a new adventure in the Premier League.
Two years on, the Swede's name is back in Barcelona's thinking through a different door. This time, though, the Catalan club are not meeting it with the enthusiasm they showed in those first negotiations.