Bayer Leverkusen left defender Alejandro Grimaldo admitted once again that he is still “dreaming” to return to his youth club Barcelona while he was distant from all possible move To Real Madrid or Atletico Madrid.
Grimaldo joined Barcelona’s academy as a 12-year-old and spent almost a decade for almost a decade by the various youth teams before he was sold to Benfica in 2016 without achieving a single senior Barcelona appearance. The defender, born in Valencia, spent seven and a half years of successful years in Portugual before Xabi Alonso opened him to Bayer Leverkusen.
The potent specialist for SET-Piece specialist reproduced the remarkable attack performance that he had produced for Benfica in one of the five best leagues in Europe, and helped Leverkusen to win the club’s first league title without suffering a single domestic defeat.
The defending German champions have not completely returned to the same heights in this semester, but Grimaldo remains one of the best left -back in the world. However, if the 29-year-old Leverkusen left his contract in 2027, there is an obvious goal that he thought of.
“I remember some interviews when I was little in which I said my dream was to reach Barca’s first team, and that was always my dream,” said Grimaldo SPORT this week.
“I have it very clearly in my head, even the club knows it. I want to return to Spain in a short and medium term, and I want to experience that I am in Spain because it is my country after all. I want to play here and enjoy this experience and it is one of my goals.”
Leverkusen’s boss Xabi Alonso was strongly made in summer to take over Real Madrid, and some suggests that he could possibly bring Grimaldo with him. The player himself was not so in love with this hypothetical scenario.
“I don’t know what Xabi will do,” he said. “It is a decision that concerns him alone. As for me, I grew up in La Masia [Barcelona’s academy]; It is the club in which I have grown as a player and as a person, and it is the club that I have dreamed of since I was a child. “
When it was put to Grimaldo whether his clear dedication for Barcelona, he excludes him out of the Atletico Madrid and Real, he struck back: “It is something that I don’t want to get involved because football takes a lot of curves and you never know what can happen.
“But it is clear, as I have already told you that I grew up in Barca and in the end, when you are in La Masia for seven or eight years, you always have that with you. I can tell you that right now.”