Wednesday, October 6, 2021 at 09:01• Chris Meijer • Last update: 09:22

Despite an alleged verbal agreement, it is not yet certain that André Onana’s future lies with Internazionale. Mundo Deportivo reports on Wednesday morning that Barcelona still has good hopes of taking over the goalkeeper from Ajax transfer-free next summer. Barcelona already made a concrete attempt to bring Onana back to Catalonia last summer.

Barcelona reportedly reported to Ajax in the last 48 hours of the transfer window with an ambitious plan. A triangular deal between Barcelona, ​​Ajax and Villarreal had to be made. In that case, Onana would make the switch to Barcelona, ​​Neto had to move to Villarreal and Sergio Asenjo should have become Ajax’s new goalkeeper. Asenjo – a single Spanish international – has played for Villarreal since 2014 and is currently second goalkeeper behind Gerónimo Rulli. However, there was not enough time to finalize this deal, partly because Barcelona had other priorities with the departure of Emerson Royal and Antoine Griezmann and the arrival of Luuk de Jong.

However, the Catalans have not yet put the arrival of Onana out of their minds, despite reports from Italy that the goalkeeper from Cameroon has had a verbal agreement with Inter since July. Fabrizio Romano said the verbal agreement would also be the reason that talks with OGC Nice and Olympique Lyon failed over the summer, although the Ligue 1 clubs also refused to meet the alleged asking price of ten million euros.

Mundo Deportivo writes on the basis of the ‘entourage of Onana’ that Inter is expressly interested, but that he has not yet given his final yes. The Spanish sports newspaper reports that Atlético Madrid, Napoli and Olympique Lyon are also still in the race for Onana, who can officially negotiate with other clubs from January 1 and first wants to wait until all offers are on the table until he makes his choice. However, his preference would be a switch to Italy or Spain. Onana already spent five years in Spain, having played in the Barcelona academy before coming to Ajax.

A return to Barcelona would attract Onana, although he wants to hear the details and the sporting perspective first. In any case, the ways of Onana and Ajax seem to part after six years. “We are not in the process of extending his contract,” football affairs director Marc Overmars recently said in conversation with Ziggo Sports. “Until now we are not having conversations, no. We tried that and it didn’t work. Then you move on. I explained that a few times.”