One year after signing one of the worst right backs in the Brazilian League, but one that did become a great meme (https://lucasammr.com/2014/08/21/douglas-the-poor-mans-alves/), FC Barcelona signed a RW/RCM that has played only 8 matches as a right back: Aleix Vidal.
But don’t worry. He’s a good player and I’m glad we signed him.
Aleix Vidal could be called a right-footed Alba: spent time at La Masia, then went a few smaller clubs (something that didn’t happen with Alba, who was signed by Valencia B), and eventually landed on a big spanish club, who then proceeded to convert him from a winger to a fullback: Unai Emery’s Sevilla.
The difference is: Alba spent 3 seasons in Valencia being converted from winger to fullback, and when we signed him, he was already one of the best LBs in La Liga.
Aleix Vidal was used mostly as a winger or midfield on his time with Almeria, where he spent 3 seasons and played over 120 matches, but only one of those season were in La Liga. The other two he spent on the Second Division.
As usual, Monchi saw something in him, and signed him for Sevilla for 3mi euros in the summer of 2014. Unai Emery mostly used him as attacking midfielder or right winger, but Aleix only started to shine on the second half of the season, where he started playing some matches as right back.
It was as a right back that Aleix had his best ever performance: Scored 2 goals and gave the assist on the 3-0 Sevilla win over Fiorentina for the Europa League semi-final first leg:
Aleix did really well on big matches this season: apart from his MOTM performance above, he gave assists against both FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, and scored against Bilbao.
Final Considerations
Aleix’s signing was weird due to the timing. SPORT leaked the news before we even played our UCL final, and the club confirmed the deal when we were literally celebrating our Triple in the streets.
While the player is a proper footballer who has had a great breakout season with Sevilla, he only played 2 seasons in La Liga, and literally only played 8 matches as a right back. Which isn’t a serious concern, given we don’t need fullbacks that are great at defending: we need them to be masters at passing, keeping and controlling the ball.
Aleix will have 4 months to work on all of that, as he said it himself on his presentation. Since he will only be able to play for us in January, he’ll only be able to train with the team.
His price was 18mi euros, plus 4 mi in variables (well, at least that was what this board said his price was, we don’t actually know if that’s the truth…), which wasn’t expensive, but not cheap, as the player will be 26 years old in August, isn’t really a right back and has only had 2 years experience in top flight football.
For that price we could have signed a younger or more promising right back, like Aurier, Cedric or Fabrinho, but they would certainly be way more expensive (specially Aurier), and most up and coming players would not want to stay 4 months without playing official matches, since we cannot loan back players during our transfer ban.
Given the timing of the transfer and how quickly Aleix was announce, most likely this means Dani Alves is indeed leaving FCB. He surely has earned the right to stay, and the club claims to have offered him 2 years plus a 3rd if he plays 60% of the matches on his second season, but difference is regarding wages, and most likely we’ll never know how much did the club offer and how much Dani wanted to stay.
Can we fare from August-December with only Douglas and Montoya?
Since I’m asked this dozens of times per week:
Bartra can play RB.
Adriano can play RB.
Hell, even Mascherano can play RB.
4 months without Alves and/or Aleix would not cause much damage to our 2015/16.
The team’s cohesion will be kept the same if Lucho stays, and even if he does leave, we are equipped to handle Alves’ absence and wait until Aleix can make his debut.
Benvingut, Aleix.