Barcelona are set to sign Manchester City and Portugal full-back Joao Cancelo on a season-long loan deal.
The 29 year-old Barreiro-born defender is due to travel to Barcelona this evening in order to undergo his medical with the Catalans and join the Blaugrana on a loan deal that includes a purchase option clause at the end of the season.
Cancelo began his professional career with Benfica in the summer of 2014 after a couple of seasons with the Benfica B side. After a season on loan with Valencia, he joined the Spanish club on a permanent deal in 2015 before a season on loan at Internazionale in 2017.
He remained in Italy in 2018, moving to Juventus on a permanent deal and then joining Manchester City in the summer of 2019 in a deal that involved Brazilian defender Danilo moving in the opposite direction.
Whilst with City, Cancelo has played 154 games and scored nine goals, winning three Premier League titles, an FA Cup and two EFL Cups but he left the club in the January transfer window, joining Bayern Munich on loan until the end of the season after a supposed falling out between himself and Pep Guardiola.
He will become Barcelona’s fourth signing of this summer’s transfer window after the arrivals of Ilkay Gundogan and Inigo Martinez on free transfers from Manchester City and Athletic Club respectively, as well as the cut-price signing of Girona central midfielder Oriol Romeu.
The versatile Cancelo will be able to provide cover and competition on both sides of Barcelona’s defence, as well as in midfield where he has been occasionally deployed whilst at the Etihad.
Xavi has been keen to play a centre-back out of position at full-back during his tenure with Barcelona. Both Ronald Araujo and Jules Kounde have been used as right-backs, whilst 16 year-old Lamine Yamal has recently broken into the side playing in a right wing-back role.
