{"id":68647,"date":"2026-08-10T14:33:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T14:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/68647\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T14:33:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T14:33:15","slug":"barcelona-leading-real-madrid-in-the-race-for-teenage-midfield-talent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/68647\/","title":{"rendered":"Barcelona leading Real Madrid in the race for teenage midfield talent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Barcelona and Racing Santander have been in negotiations for the <a href=\"https:\/\/barcauniversal.com\/la-liga-club-stand-firm-on-e16-million-price-tag-for-barcelona-defensive-target\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">transfer of Jorge Salinas<\/a> for a while now, and negotiations are moving in the right direction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As reported by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sport.es\/es\/noticias\/barca\/futbol-base\/barca-vuelve-carga-joya-racing-133217000\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">SPORT<\/a>, however, he is not the only Racing player Barcelona are interested in, as the Catalans are now reopening their interest in Sergio Martinez, one of their most talented midfielders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is not the first time Deco and Co. have been interested in the youngster\u2019s signing, for they made an <a href=\"https:\/\/barcauniversal.com\/barcelona-real-madrid-table-offer-for-18-year-old-spanish-midfield-talent\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">offer in January<\/a> only for the deal not to go through. Now, they return in his pursuit once more.<\/p>\n<p>Barcelona are pushing<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As reported by the Spanish outlet now, Barcelona are pushing to sign the teenage talent and see him as a valuable option on multiple fronts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For starters, the administration sees him as a top talent to reinforce the Bar\u00e7a Atletic setup as a key player and possibly even a starter. Concurrently, the Catalans also acknowledge that he has the talent required to make it big with the first team in the near future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As matters stand, Barcelona and Real Madrid are both interested in the player but it is the Catalan side who lead the race.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Racing, however, are making negotiations complicated as they only renewed him last November until 2029 and increased his release clause to \u20ac3 million. They demand a large sell-on clause, something Barcelona are not happy giving away.<\/p>\n<p>A high-quality midfielder\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Martinez stands out as one of Racing Santander\u2019s most talented prospects and is a midfielder who would fit well into Barcelona\u2019s dynamic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He is already a Spanish under-19 international and has great ball control in addition to being astute with his tactical sense. Further, his physique is dominant and he can add brawn to Barcelona\u2019s midfield.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In recent years, he has worked hard to improve the defensive aspect of his game as well and can now play seamlessly as a pivot on need. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Given that Tommy Marques and Brian Farinas are set to leave the subsidiary side, he would be a great addition, but Barcelona will have to fast-track the negotiations given the interest from other parties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barcelona and Racing Santander have been in negotiations for the transfer of Jorge Salinas for a while now,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[92,222,82,15653,27014],"class_list":["post-68647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-madrid","tag-barcelona","tag-barcelona-news","tag-madrid","tag-racing-santander","tag-sergio-martinez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}