Barcelona's Striker Dilemma: Finding the Missing Piece
Barcelona have spent the summer stockpiling talent everywhere on the pitch – except in the one area that usually decides titles.
The Spanish champions have added a Ballon d'Or winner and a World Cup-winning captain in Rodri, prised from Manchester City to anchor and elevate an already gifted midfield. They have injected pace and chaos out wide with Anthony Gordon and Karim Adeyemi, and tucked away 18-year-old Belgian winger Jesse Bisiwu as a bet on the future.
Yet with La Liga about to kick off, there is a glaring hole at centre-forward.
A supercharged squad with a missing piece
Hansi Flick takes his team to Elche on Sunday, 23 August, knowing that if Barcelona do not move before the window closes on 1 September, they could go through the entire campaign without a recognised number nine.
Robert Lewandowski is gone, the 37-year-old leaving for Chicago Fire in Major League Soccer when his contract expired at the end of last season. Ferran Torres has followed him out, joining Paris St-Germain for about 50m euros (£42.7m).
Between them, those exits strip Flick of both his reference point and his main alternative. Torres scored 21 goals in 49 appearances last season and often filled in through the middle when Lewandowski was rotated or rested. Now both are out of the dressing room and off the teamsheet.
The result is stark: Barcelona start the season without an established senior striker in their first-team squad.
The Alvarez dream – and Atletico’s hard line
Inside the club, there is no secret about the preferred solution. Barcelona want Julian Alvarez from Atletico Madrid.
The 26-year-old Argentina international signalled during the World Cup that he would be open to a move away, a comment that immediately alerted Europe’s elite. Barcelona see him as the ideal fit to lead their line in this new era.
Atletico have responded with a brick wall. Interest from Real Madrid only hardened their stance. Chief executive Miguel Angel Gil Marin made it plain: Atletico would not sell Alvarez, not even for 200m euros (£170.8m).
For now, the door is shut. Barcelona must plan as if Alvarez is staying where he is.
Flick’s internal fixes
Flick has not tried to disguise the problem.
"We know we have to do something," he said this month, while pointing straight back at the players already in his squad. The German is not short of attacking options, just short of a pure penalty-box striker.
Teenager Lamine Yamal has already become the attacking focal point. He is coming off a season in which he scored 24 goals and lifted the World Cup with Spain. At 16, he has the numbers of a seasoned forward and the swagger of a street footballer.
Yet his greatest threat does not come from playing with his back to goal. It comes from the right flank, where he isolates full-backs, cuts inside and bends games to his will from positions that look harmless until he touches the ball. Flick’s preference is clear: Lamine Yamal should start from the right wing, not as a permanent false nine.
Dani Olmo can operate between the lines and step up as a false nine. Raphinha has already been used centrally by Flick. Fermin Lopez has said he is comfortable playing that role as well, drifting into advanced areas rather than living between centre-backs.
Then there is the raw speed. Gordon and Adeyemi offer direct running, vertical threat and the ability to rip open defences on the break. Neither, though, is a conventional number nine. They want space to attack, not bodies on their back.
A fluid front line – solution or gamble?
One option is to lean into the chaos.
Barcelona could set up with a rotating front line, no fixed striker, constant movement. Lamine Yamal drifting inside, Gordon darting beyond, Adeyemi attacking gaps, Olmo and Raphinha popping up in pockets. No obvious reference point for defenders to mark, no easy match-up for centre-backs to settle into.
On paper, that makes them a nightmare to defend. Press them high and they spin into the space behind. Sit deep and they overload the half-spaces, creating shooting lanes and cut-backs from all angles.
But the trade-off is clear. Without a specialised striker, there is no natural finisher living in the box, no instinctive poacher reading second balls, no veteran presence to slow the game down in the final third when tension rises.
Flick can improvise. He has the tools to build a shape that bends traditional definitions of a front line. Yet inside the club, there is no debate about the ideal scenario.
Barcelona want a number nine who fits their profile, someone to knit together this lavish collection of creators and runners. The question, with the clock ticking towards 1 September, is whether they can find him – or whether this season becomes a high-wire act without a safety net.
