Are you a US national team fan? Do you want some truly wild silly-season transfer gossip? Well, Mundo Deportivo has got the wild silly-season transfer gossip you've been looking for.
The Spanish outlet reported on Tuesday that FC Barcelona – who have been pursing highly regarded Colombian defender Juan Cuadrado without success this summer – have a global list of fullbacks on their radar as the Catalonian superclub tries to augment its options in wide areas both now and in the future.
And the list supposedly includes none other than Fabian Johnson, the marauding right back who lit up the USMNT's starboard flank at the World Cup before his tournament was ended early by a hamstring injury in the first half of the team's Round-of-16 loss to Belgium.
“This is a winger with much range, intensity and verticality,” said Mundo Deportivo in describing Johnson. “His deficit is neglecting his rearguard on some isolated occasions.”
As exciting as the idea of “FabJo” joining the four-time European champions might be, this particular idea must be accompanied by more than few grains of salt.
With FCB supposedly tracking "younger" attacking fullbacks, he's something of an outlier at age 26. And it would be nigh on impossible for Johnson to join Barça in the current transfer window, since he just signed with Borussia Mönchengladbach from Hoffenheim as a free agent in a deal inked before the World Cup.
And that contract, which runs until 2018, will surely force the Catalans to shell out a substantial transfer fee should they make him a legitimate target for acquisition – something they could've avoided had they done their homework on the German-American a bit earlier.
So next year's international transfer windows look like the earliest opportunities for Barcelona to snare Johnson. And in world soccer, that's a lifetime away.
