Monday 16 March 2009

AC Milan interested in Valdes

Madrid sports paper Marca unconfirmedly claims that AC Milan is interested in Barcelona goalkeeper Víctor Valdés (27). Other media have meanwhile taken over the rumour.

The Italian club would have sounded out Valdés, whose contract with Barcelona expires in 2010, about the chances of joining them in the summer. Milan would like to let go Dida and Kalac at the end of the season and Valdés could become the new signing who will have to compete with Abbiati for the position of first goalkeeper.

Asked about the future of the Catalan goalkeeper, Barcelona president Joan Laporta said last week in an interview with Spanish radio station Radio Punto that the club wants to renew the contract of Valdés: "I know that Txiki Begiristain is already working on his renewal. It's a player I like a lot and he has everything to be the goalkeeper of Barça for many more years. He's the best goalkeeper in the Liga and I don't understand why he's not with the national team. People haven't been just towards him."

Earlier this month, Barcelona manager Josep Guardiola gave his full support to Valdés at a press conference: "I have no doubts at all about him. Víctor is lucky to be mentally very strong, he can deal with criticism. My trust in him is that big that he can commit all the errors he wants. He has saved us many times and he will again do that again. You can discuss about a young coach like myself or about a player who's just arriving, but I don't understand that there's so much discussion about Víctor, who has been here for an eternity and who has given us so much."

Catalan sports paper Sport claims that the renewal negotiations with Valdés were put on hold last summer, when Barcelona sports vice-president Marc Ingla left the club which lead to a reorganization of the board. Barcelona plans to reopen the talks at the end of the season with a concrete offer until 2014.

Read more:
Valdes unaware of the club's renewal plans
Txiki talks about the summer transfer market
Barcelona speaking with Cech and Buffon

19 comments:

rasagna said...

Please buy a new Goal Keeper .. Valdes is definitely a good GK, but he is definitely not upto the GK standards that Barca requires. As we play attacking football, we need a GK who is strong, exceptional, and who doesn't commit errors. It is time we see past Valdes.

sashi said...

dont let go off VV... he's been our hero n will surely be our hero in sometime... lets give him some time to regain confidence... lets not lose faith in him...

kamikaze kontiki said...

"My trust in him is that big that he can commit all the errors he wants."

Is that something he should be saying??? Come on Pep, that is going a little overboard. VV doesn't really need encouragement to make errors !

Ramzi said...

who are the other options we can get? they need to be too good for barcelona to take the risk of sacking what they have and know to what they didn't test.

Before Valdes, we had some keepers who were much better. But they were not mentally strong to handle the whips of critic of demanding barcelona fans. After their first mistake they got doubted, they collapsed and mistake after mistake created a snow ball that crushed them out of the team, for another miserable story for another keeper to start.

I just cant understand how can he keep his moral up, and his knees strong enough to stand guarding barcelona net! Impressive by all means! just imagine going to a driving test where the guy there don't care how much you know, and how good u r in somethings, but want to dig for one detail you don't know to drop you!

Now imagine that instead of one guy, you have 90,000 shouting in the stadium, and millions around the world, all with their eyes staring on you, waiting for your first mistake, to see your head flying in the air!

Pst:I had no problem in my driving test :)

Subramanian said...

That's the whole point.Valdes knows how hard his job and wants to do it badly enough.He is a hero of the colours and i can understand his position.

sashi said...

tats the spirit guys!!! lets show VV our support... there are very few top class keepers who are gettable and very very few of them can handle the pressure at Barca... VV is doing a gr8 job by keeping his head high in spite of thigns not going gud... he will definitely come out as the winner of this turmoil... GOOOOOOOOO BARCA!!!!!!

rasagna said...

Seriously sometimes I dont understand what people say and this is one of them. Which big teams GK doesnt have any pressure, does vander sar have any pressure or casillas have any pressure, or buffon have any pressure. Handling pressure is part and parcel of their job. The only way to silence your critics is by playing well. if you dont play well then the critics will be definitely after you. Sorry friends I strongly disagree with you. If you look at the team and say which part of the Barca's team is weak, then the answer will be definitely not the forwards, not the midfielder, and not the defenders but the GK. I may be harsh .. but plzzz cut the pressure CRAP ..

memo said...

valdes is class! He doesnt have to prove anything to any of you. your negative opinions mean nothing to Valdes. After this season he will have more trophies under his belt and that still wont be enough for some of you. He will renew, some of you will cry.. deal with it.

Animo Valdes!

Ramzi said...

vander sar too old and we cant get, casillas we cant get, and buffon we cant get.

Who are the keepers we CAN get?

And for the record, neither Vander sar nor buffon needs to handle with 20 % of the pressure Valdes need to deal with. Juventus will keep their coach even if he spent 4 years without a title, Sir Alex is the Man Utd coach since the Dinosaurs era, and he had numerous flops. Spain is different...Believe me :)

I didn't forget Casillas, but I think he is too good to be criticized, so actually there is almost no pressure on him at all if u ask me. Not the kind of pressure we are talking about at least.

Eto'o failed to score once this season in one game, and that was more than enough for barcelona fans to start questioning his worth. Man Utd fans really believe that rooney is the best striker in the world, even when he start a scoring fast for months...eh...I wish our players had that kind of pressure on them...

Its easy to say "sell", but its not as easy to "Buy". And thats a position you cant afford to play another outfield player to cover(as Puyol play an Alves, Marquez can play a yaya...) we need a keeper, the best one we CAN get, not the one we wish to have.

Anonymous said...

You are being too harsh M4V3R1K. He did mistakes, but he also made some world class saves for us. You went to critisize VV that far, ask yourself first why Rijkaard didn't critisized him like you did? Rijkaard worked with him for 5 years, and VV was the undisputed number 1 under him. Why Rijkaard made him the number 1? I don't want to elaborate more. Let you make theories all you want.

Anonymous said...

Wow... "the best goalkeeper in the Liga..." that is a slightly delusional statement from Laporta. Even as a Barcelona fan I can not deny that Casillas is probably the best… it would also be pretty hard to argue that Valdés is better than Diego Lopez… even the performance from Diego Alves yesterday looked better than Valdés.

Anonymous said...

I wont say valdes is in the class of van de sar julio cesar buffon casillas or reina. What i will say is this. Valdes has saved us some crucial goals throughout his career here. The thing is he tends to go to sleep sometimes and do silly things. I honestly think he just needs a little competition for the #1 spot to keep him on his toes. He has done many good things for us. If you do not believe me look at the champions league final between arsenal and barcelona

memo said...

Diego Alves has the performance of his life on sunday and now hes better than Valdes?

Oct 25, 2008
FCB 5 - Almeria 0
V. Valdes > Diego Alves

Diego Lopez?

Dec 21, 2008
Villarreal 1 - FCB 2
Diego Lopez < V. Valdes

VV Wins!

rasagna said...

Oh my god ! It is me Vs the rest ..

Guys I do not hate Valdes, I just feel that our GK is not among the top 3/4 GKs of the world at the moment, but on his day nothing goes past him. He lacks consistency. I think everybody agrees with that.

The point I was trying to make is not to buy Vander saar or Buffon, but to raise the bar of GKing standards of Barca.

@barca4life - I think you are spot on mate. We need a young and talented GK who should give enough competition for the #1 spot.

@memo - I understand you are a die hard fan of VV, but that is certainly not the right way to compare GKs.

Anonymous said...

I have always been a supporter of Victor ever since I saw my first Barca match in 2004.

As long as there are no targets out there that are waaaay better and are avaliable I don't see any reason to replace him. The only GK's that could do his job better is Buffon and Casillas and they are not obtainable.

However we need a better 2nd goalkeeper. Look at United, they have Foster and Kuszcak and both are way better then Pinto and Jorquera. Asenjo would be great as 2nd goalkeeper with Pinto as 3rd.

Anonymous said...

Barca players deserve a quality keeper a keeper who's not going to destroy all their efforts with a big stupid mistake!

Marc4barca said...

i don't really care if valdes stays or goes barca never really focuses on Goalkeepers anyways. its all about that front line.. there's a saying that barca's best defense is their offense so our game plan is to most likey out score our opponents if we really cared about that backline then valdes, marquez abidal will all have been sold already and guess what they bought alves for what reason..u guessed it, to attack so no need to waste money buying a top class keeper like casillas buffon and van da sar cause they have one thing in common they can't get at barca a solid back 8. i do agree with buying sergio asenjo though cause i like to see young players in barcelona it makes me feel secure for the future.

Ramen said...

To tell you the truth, I can see Valdes being amazing there in Milan. He has so many duties to take care of because of the high line.

Then again, Casillas has an even worse defense to take care of...

Anonymous said...

I would like it if Valdez stayed here. He is a very good goalie and that is something we are missing on the BENCH. I would like us to get another world class goalie and bench Valdez if he doesn't complain. People are always complaining about how we don't have any good keepers on the bench (I'm a fan of Pinto though). Hopefully, next year, our goalie line up is:
Pepe Reina, Victor Valdez, Pinto.

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