Barca negotiates for Inigo Martinez, another alternative to Kounde

• From the Basque Country, a call from Mateu Alemany to Jon Uriarte is signed to talk about the central defender

• Martinez has one more year of his contract with Athletic and his clause is 80 million but he considers that this would be his last great opportunity 

• In 2017 he reached an agreement with Barca at the express request of Valverde, now his coach in Bilbao, but the signing was frustrated by internal pressure from the locker room so as not to harm Mascherano

The signing of Jules Kounde (23 years old) is complicated for FC Barcelona and that is why the Barça technical secretariat is already moving to address possible alternatives. Hence, Onda Vasca reported this Friday at noon that Mateu Alemany had called Jon Uriarte, the new president of the Athletic Club, to discuss the option of signing Inigo Martinez. 

At 31 years old, the center-back considers that this is his last great opportunity to sign for a team like Barca, as the aforementioned information relates, but to leave there should be the will of the Bilbao club to negotiate since he has one year left contract there. 

Precisely the fact that he can go free at the end of next year would be a factor that could make Athletic agree to transfer him for an amount according to the Barca offers, less than the 80 million euros that he has as a clause. 

Bearing in mind that Lewandowski has left Munich for 45+5 having only one more year on his contract and Sadio Mane left Liverpool for Bayern for 32+9 in the same contractual situation, Athletic should be below the pressure by Inigo Martinez in light of the current market situation.

Onda Vasca explains that Inigo Martinez has already been trying this option several times together with his representative and that the player himself notified Athletic before Nunez was loaned to Celta Vigo. Ernesto Valverde‘s team plays this Saturday (5 pm) against Mainz on German soil. Inigo Martinez played the first 45 minutes yesterday in the friendly won by the ‘lions’ (1-4) in Bochum.

In 2017 he had it done with Barca

Inigo Martinez could be from FC Barcelona in the summer of 2017 when he was a member of Real Sociedad. He even reached an agreement but finally, the Barca club gave up signing him due to pressure from the locker room so as not to harm Javier Mascherano, who had already lost ownership in favor of Samuel Umtiti, who had established himself as Gerard Pique‘s partner. Finally, the ‘little boss’ also had no continuity and in the middle of the campaign he ended up leaving Barca to join the Chinese Hebei Fortune under the command of Manuel Pellegrini. In that same winter market, Athletic paid the 32 million termination clause to Real.

Ernesto Valverde was the coach who requested the signing of Íñigo for Barca and is now his coach at Athletic. The strength that the player can do to Txingurri may depend on the Biscayan club letting him leave for the Camp Nou, now, five years later.