Who Is Apparent Barcelona Transfer Target Samuel Umtiti?
We’re about to enter the time of year when agents, chairmen and those others with a vested interest in football transfers—sometimes everyone but the footballers themselves—begin to dominate the sports-news agendas.
Even though the 2016 UEFA European Championship will be taking place in France, you can be sure that who is moving where will become the hottest of topics, and that the fees involved will keep on being driven up and up.
Lyon owner and chairman Jean-Michel Aulas knows this having been in his position at the club for 29 years now, and he showed a willingness to “play the game” when questions were asked of him about Barcelona’s reported interest in forward Alexandre Lacazette, per ESPN.
“I really want him (Lacazette) to stay,” they report Aulas as having told the French radio station RMC on Monday. “I met the [Barcelona] president not so long ago. He didn't talk to me about Alex.”
But then Aulas was asked if defender Samuel Umtiti came up in conversation, and his reply, again via ESPN, was a mischievous “maybe.”
And so the rumour mill sprang into action, linking the 22-year-old French defender with a move to Catalonia following what have been five impressive seasons in the Lyon first team despite his tender age.
He is a player that is used to the transfer limelight already, having been linked with a move to Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham Hotspur in the recent past, but Umtiti remained on message when he addressed those stories to Telefoot earlier this week.
Per ESPN, he said:
"It's flattering. He's (Pochettino) a manager that I like. As well as that, his team are performing well. But beyond that, my aim really is to finish the season well.
Like I've said several times, there will be discussions with my club [at the end of the season] to know how to go forward on a personal level and with Lyon.
I watch all the leagues but I find that the Spanish league suits me a lot more in relation to my qualities.
"
Bingo. Barcelona, come on down.
It is not hard to hear the gears of the transfer machine grinding into action, as Umtiti is linked with the exact same move that Eric Abidal—another left-sided French defender who could play in the centre—made to great success in 2007.
So who better to hear from next?
“He is world class,” Abidal told Lyon’s official website when asked directly about Umtiti.
“That's why he's a starter at a club like OL. He has a lot of qualities I really wish him the very best for the years to come. He's such an important player that it would be really tough for OL to let him go.”
As Abidal knows, though—and as will probably be the case with Lacazette—clubs such as Lyon do eventually let their top talents go. Abidal, Karim Benzema, Michael Essien and Florent Malouda are just some of the star names to have passed through their doors, and Umtiti looks to be the next.
Although not overly tall, the Cameroon-born defender possesses a stocky frame and is certainly a powerful presence at the back, where he has helped Lyon to second place in the Ligue 1 table this season. They now face a crucial, almost winner-takes-all battle for UEFA Champions League qualification behind Paris Saint-Germain against AS Monaco on Saturday.
Capped for France at every level from under-17s up to under-21s, he is still to win a call-up for the senior squad, although an opportunity has presented itself now given Mamadou Sakho’s likely absence for Euro 2016 following his failed drugs test.
Like Sakho, Umtiti is not afraid to express himself with his powerful left foot, but unlike the Liverpool man he is more assured in possession. He also possesses a flair for the spectacular, as a stunning goal against Tottenham in the UEFA Europa League in 2013 showed.
With both Thomas Vermaelen and Jeremy Mathieu never consistently able to impress either in form or fitness, and the time having arrived for Marc Bartra to move on for the good of his career, Barca should be on the look-out for a younger, more mobile defender that they can call upon in the 2016/17 season.
Umtiti could be that man, especially given that he could also cover at left-back as and when Jordi Alba is in need of rest or if Luis Enrique wants some added defensive stability.
There is still a long way to go with both this and many other transfers, and we shouldn’t overreact on the basis of a single word from the Lyon chairman, but it might pay to keep your eye on this Umtiti to Barca story.
It could have legs.
.jpg?w=600 "Shedeur not currently in line for Browns QB1")
