Barcelona Turned Down Chance To Sign Real Madrid Star

The Spanish club don’t have a great record when it comes to signing defenders… Barcelona’s scouting team, which for so long has successfully identified the best young talent in the world, has been somewhat embarrassed by recent revelations about a significant oversight they made. Spanish paper AS revealed that the Catalan club produced a scouting reporting on Real Madrid centre-back Raphael Varane while he was at Lens, but did not like what they see. Barcelona have struggled to find centre-backs that fit their system in recent years. Players like Dimitro Chygrynsky and Gabi Milito have been high-profile failure; and the club has been forced to turn to Javier Mascherano, a converted midfielder as their most important defender since the retirement of Carles Puyol.