Barcelona Transfer News: Latest Rumours on Luka Modric and Gelson Martins

It’s been revealed Barcelona turned down the opportunity to sign Real Madrid marvel Luka Modric in 2008, when he moved to Tottenham Hotspur. Elsewhere, the agent of Sporting CP star Gelson Martins has insisted his client is “going nowhere.”

The father of ex-Barca starlet Bojan Krkic—also referred to as Bojan—was working as a scout for the club at the time, and he recently appeared on the Què t’hi jugues! programme on the SER Catalunya radio station (h/t Sport), where he said:

I saw it clearly, also the case of [Frank] Ribery (…) we had it in our hands. Modric was a player with a winning mentality, but the club weren’t thinking about the future, only in the short-to-medium-term.

Our contact in Croatia spoke wonders of Modric before he signed for Tottenham. I was working for Barça then and they sent us various DVDs with Dynamo Zagreb and the Croatian national team.

Xavi, Iniesta, Toure and Busquets [in the B team]. They didn’t contemplate the option of signing.

Modric instead went on to join Tottenham from Dinamo Zagreb that summer and spent four years at White Hart Lane before completing a £30 million move to Barca rivals Real Madrid in 2008, per BBC Sport.

Four-and-a-half years later, and the Croat is playing the best football of his career for Los Merengues, illustrated in a tide-turning display in Saturday’s 1-1 El Clasico draw, per Real Madrid TV presenter Phil Kitromilides:

As well as scoring the winner, Ramos also had the best pass success …

continue reading in source www.bleacherreport.com