October 27, (THEWILL) – Due to soreness in his right knee, Barcelona attacker Ansu Fati will miss the club’s La Liga match against Rayo Vallecano on Wednesday evening.
Fortunately, it is not the same knee that he had surgery on last season, which kept him out for nearly a year. Nevertheless, it is a huge setback for Barca given the youngster’s excellent influence since his comeback.
Apart from confirming that Fati will miss the trip to Madrid, the club has given no indication of how long he will be out.
Barca will play Alaves, Dynamo Kyiv, and Celta Vigo in the next week and a half before the November international break, desperate for wins after capturing maximum points in fewer than half of their first nine La Liga games and struggling in the Champions League.
Fati has two goals and one assist in 168 minutes of La Liga action this season, but he could not inspire Barca to anything other than a 2-1 loss to Real Madrid in the season’s first Clasico at Camp Nou over the weekend.
As THEWILL reported, Fati just signed a new contract with Barca that runs till 2027 and has a massive €1 billion buyout clause.
He revealed that there were offers to quit with his prior contract due to end next year. But, he turned down the offers, claiming that playing for Barca was still his “dream.”
“Like I’ve said to Jorge [Mendes], from day one, my first option was to stay at Barca,” Fati said.
“They understood that perfectly and with the president we were able to reach an agreement. I’m very happy that the club has the confidence in me. It could be that I had offers from outside, but I wanted to be really clear and my dream was to stay here and be a success here.”
Manchester United, Liverpool, and Paris Saint-Germain were all said to have made contact through “different intermediaries” and were willing to pay the 18-year-old “more than twice” his current wage to leave Camp Nou. But, he chose to remain with the Catalan side.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
