Is FC Barcelona trying to sign Benjamin Pavard from Bayern Munich?

There’s a lot of confusion on the internet about this, so let’s get it clear — is FC Barcelona trying to sign another player from Bayern Munich? The answer is ... maybe. This was going to be a straightforward breakdown of a transfer rumor about Benjamin Pavard, but quickly spiraled into a deep dive into Spanish-language sources and the strange world of Barca twitter.

So here’s what happened. According to @iMiaSanMia, who rarely ever get their wires crossed, Benjamin Pavard is wanted by Barcelona as a right-back option next summer. Here is their tweet:

The original source for this info is apparently a journalist fan account (@fansjavimgiuel), which is more than a little bit confusing because why does a journalist need a fan account?

The same account then posted a quote from Joan Laporta seemingly confirming interest in Pavard, however the story linked by them makes zero mention of the quote, and neither does the Diario AS website. Possibly because of this, @iMiaSanMia posted and then deleted a tweet about Laporta’s alleged quote.

So, is it true?

Probably not, or rather, probably not yet. It’s possible that this journalist fan account isn’t just stringing everyone along, and they did get some insider info that was shared only on Spanish TV or whatever. However, it’s impossible to verify and no one in the replies to their tweet has even tried to do so.

What about other Barca fan-sources? What do they say? Well unfortunately, Barca fan sources are worse than dirt, their content is rarely sourced and it’s hard to figure out their authenticity.

In short, the report is very sketchy. Don’t go believing it just yet.

Does it make sense?

This is harder to answer. We do know that Benjamin Pavard wants to leave Bayern Munich — contract talks haven’t gone well, and the player seems to be dissatisfied with his role at the club. After the success of Robert Lewandowski, it feels like Joan Laporta would be happy to sign another player from FCB if he got the chance. Since Pavard’s contract expires in 2024, Barca would hold all the cards in the coming summer.

However, does the Frenchman really have a reason to go to Barca? The Spanish language reports all say that Barca want him as a right-back. This doesn’t fit with German reports, which say that he wants a move to central defense in the near future. However, Barca already have Jules Kounde for the center-back position, and need to fill the right-back spot rather urgently.

It seems that the two parties’ expectations are incompatible with each other. Now, will that change in the future? Maybe. Last year, December is around the time when the Lewandowski to Barca rumors first surfaced, and they seemed just as implausible back then. We know how that ended.

We’ll keep an eye on this rumor and see if it amounts to anything.