Barcelona Pursues New No. 9 as Tresoldi Emerges Behind Julián Álvarez
Barcelona’s summer ends with a promise: a centre-forward will arrive before the window shuts. Inside the club, that message is clear. So is the preferred name.
Julián Álvarez remains Plan A.
The belief at Barça is that the Argentine will eventually land at Montjuïc because he is determined to leave Atlético Madrid. But the clock is ticking, negotiations are complicated, and the sporting department cannot afford to wait blindly. So a parallel search is running, one that has thrown up a new, intriguing name.
Tresoldi on the radar
In England, reports picked up by SPORT point to Nicolo Tresoldi as one of the strikers under serious monitoring by Barcelona. He is not a household name in Spain yet, but in Belgium he has just completed a breakout season.
At Club Brugge, Tresoldi finished last campaign as the team’s leading scorer, striking 24 goals in all competitions and driving their attack with a maturity that belies his age. Only 21, he is already a Germany U-21 international and widely tagged as one of the most promising young forwards on the market.
His rise has not gone unnoticed. Premier League clubs have already knocked on Brugge’s door this summer, as have AS Roma. The answer has been the same: more than €40 million or no deal. So far, nobody has gone that high, and Tresoldi remains in Belgium.
Barcelona, though, have done their homework. The club already hold all the key information on a potential transfer and have opened lines of communication with the player’s camp, stopping short of a formal move. Scouts have been working his profile in detail over recent days, convinced he belongs in the group of young No. 9s who could realistically change clubs before the deadline.
Hansi Flick knows him well from Germany’s youth national teams. The reports on his development are excellent. The view at Barça is that Tresoldi is not just a short-term solution, but a forward with the ceiling to become a star.
A striker who has already hurt Barça
Barcelona do not need to imagine what Tresoldi might look like against their back line. They have already lived it.
In last season’s Champions League, Tresoldi scored in the 3-3 draw between Club Brugge and Barça, tormenting the Blaugrana defence with his movement and presence in the box. It was one of several standout performances in a campaign that pushed his name firmly into the European conversation.
Brugge, for their part, are not easy to deal with. Barcelona learned that in the negotiations for Jesse Bisiwu. The Belgian club squeeze every euro out of their assets and are ready to hold their ground again. At the same time, they are fully aware of the market reality: if a top-level club arrives with a serious, structured offer for Tresoldi, keeping him will be extremely difficult.
Why Tresoldi fits – and why he’s a risk
On the pitch, Tresoldi ticks many of the boxes Barcelona are looking for in a No. 9.
He links well with teammates, plays sharply in tight spaces and has shown he can operate effectively against deep defensive blocks, a scenario Barça face almost every week in La Liga. Inside the penalty area he is a ruthless finisher, quick to attack spaces and alive to second balls.
His game is not complete yet. Dribbling in one-on-one situations is not his strongest weapon, and he still has clear room to grow physically and tactically at the very highest level. That is both the attraction and the warning sign.
For a club counting every transfer euro, paying more than €40 million for a forward who is not yet a fully finished product carries obvious risk. The upside is enormous; the margin for error is small.
Álvarez still the priority
All of this unfolds while Barcelona continue to work on one central objective: Julián Álvarez.
For Flick and Deco, the Argentine remains the primary target. Every planning meeting, every tactical sketch for the coming season, starts with the idea of Álvarez leading the line. The club’s internal message has not changed: he is Plan A.
But the market rarely bends perfectly to a single plan. Fees, timing, competing clubs, and the player’s situation at Atlético Madrid could yet derail the operation. Barcelona know this, and they refuse to be left scrambling in the final days of the window.
So they wait on Álvarez, while quietly building a Plan B.
Tresoldi sits firmly on that list of alternatives, one of several options under close examination. Whether he becomes the chosen man or stays as the forward who once haunted Barça in a 3-3 Champions League draw will depend on how the next few weeks unfold — and how far Barcelona are willing to bet on potential over certainty in the most decisive position on the pitch.
