Barcelona reportedly rejected an offer put forward by Juventus in order to secure a deal for forward Federico Bernardeschi during the summer transfer window.
The Catalan giants strengthened their squad significantly with the two marquee signings of Frenkie de Jong and Antoine Griezmann this summer, but players did depart too.
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Philippe Coutinho joined Bayern Munich on an initial loan deal, while they’ve been hit by injuries with Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Ousmane Dembele all suffering knocks to start the new campaign.
In turn, it perhaps won’t be much of a surprise that they were targeting an attacking reinforcement for coach Ernesto Valverde, with Mundo Deportivo noting that they held an interest in Bernardeschi.
However, terms offered by Juventus to secure an agreement were rejected by the reigning La Liga champions, as it’s claimed that the Bianconeri wanted €23m and Ivan Rakitic for the Italian international.
The report adds that Barcelona snubbed that deal as they didn’t believe it was a fair reflection of the valuation of the two players in question, and so ultimately the duo involved in the touted deal stayed where they were when the deadline passed.
Nevertheless, it remains to be seen if they start talks again either in January or next summer if the interest lasts, but it may well require different terms being discussed given that the deal proposed by Juve above clearly wasn’t one that Barca were prepared to accept.
