Joao Felix has made a quick start to life at Barcelona. The Portuguese attacker is on a year-long loan at the Camp Nou from Atletico Madrid.
Joao Felix has registered three goals and one assist in three games for the Blaugrana, with his best game coming against Royal Antwerp in the midweek clash in the UEFA Champions League. He scored two goals and assisted another in Barca’s 5-0 thrashing of the Belgian side.
Barca will now turn their attention back to La Liga, where they’re second in the points table with four wins and a draw from five games. Ahead of their weekend clash against Celta Vigo, Barcelona boss Xavi was quizzed about the possibility of Felix making a permanent switch to the Camp Nou in the future.
Here’s what the Blaugrana boss said on the same:
“We are talking about long-term hypotheses. It’s a long time, and these are circumstances we will evaluate. It’s too early, and right now, it’s unthinkable to decide anything.”
Barcelona parted ways with Ousmane Dembele this summer but have not felt his absence owing to Felix’s bright start.
Joao Felix opens up about sacrifice made to complete Barcelona switch
Barcelona‘s precarious financial condition nearly made it impossible for them to complete the signing of Felix, on loan, from Atletico Madrid. The player has now revealed that he took a big salary cut to complete the move to the Camp Nou (as per barcanewsnetwork).
“The truth is I gave up a significant amount of money from my salary,” Felix told Mundo Deportivo.
“But, well, I needed to change. I needed to go to a place where I could practice my football and, as I said, I always believed this would be the ideal place. Things are going well. I had to make that effort to have joy playing again.”
Felix was also quizzed if he would take similar steps to complete a permanent switch in the near future. He responded:
“It depends how the season ends. Barcelona are the ones who have to negotiate with Atleti, and it all depends on Atleti, if they want to make things easier or not.
“But those are business things, numbers which I don’t get involved in. I do my job on the field. I try to do my best so that they want to sign me in the end.”
Felix was signed by Atletico Madrid from Benfica in 2019 for a mammoth fee of €126 million.