Barcelona Signs Gabriel Jesus After Long Pursuit

The Catalan club have struck a late deal with Arsenal, paying a modest 10 million euros to bring the Brazilian forward to the Camp Nou in a move that few inside the club genuinely expected to materialise. For weeks, all signs pointed to Barça finishing the window without a new striker, blocked above all by Atlético de Madrid’s refusal to even sit down and talk about Julián Álvarez.

When that door slammed shut, another one quietly opened. And it is a door Barcelona first knocked on almost a decade ago.

A pursuit that started in Palmeiras

Gabriel Jesus has been on Barcelona’s radar since 2016, when he was exploding at Palmeiras and already making waves with the Brazilian national team. Back then, Robert Fernández, Barça’s sporting director at the time, flew to Brazil to watch him up close.

He was not alone. Half of Europe had noticed the wiry, fearless forward terrorising defences in Brazil. The player, barely out of his teens, had to weigh up a career-defining decision.

Barcelona tried to play one of their strongest cards: Neymar.

Both were in the Brazil squad preparing for the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. During that camp, Neymar — already a Barça star — took it upon himself to sell the club and the city to his young teammate. Gabriel Jesus later admitted in an interview that the conversation left a mark.

“Neymar told me about the city, that the climate was similar to Brazil, and it made me hesitate,” he recalled.

Neymar’s pitch, Pep’s call

Neymar knew the pressure of being young, coveted, and one big decision away from changing everything. He painted the picture: life at Barcelona, the style of play, the sunshine, the feeling of being close to home.

“It was a difficult moment when I had to choose a team. Neymar knows what it’s like to be young and have several European clubs want you. He told me about what Barcelona was like, about the city. And he told me the climate is similar to Brazil’s. He made me hesitate because Barça is also a great club, but I realized that I could go to another big club with more chances to play,” Gabriel Jesus said in that interview with The Sun.

That “other big club” was Manchester City.

The turning point came not from a teammate, but from a manager. Pep Guardiola picked up the phone. One conversation was enough to tilt the scales.

“I saw that City was really interested in me after speaking with Pep on the phone,” Gabriel Jesus explained. The call convinced him. Barcelona’s option faded. City’s project, and Guardiola’s direct involvement, won the race.

A deal delayed, not denied

From there, the story seemed written. Gabriel Jesus went to Manchester, then to Arsenal, and Barcelona watched from afar as another striker slipped away.

Now, after all those years and all those sliding doors, the Brazilian finally lands in Barcelona — not as the raw prospect from Palmeiras, but as a seasoned Premier League forward, signed in the final hours of a window that looked destined to end in frustration.

The question now is simple and sharp: will the move they couldn’t pull off in 2016 be the one that reshapes their attack in 2024?