FC Barcelona Make Offer To Sign Brazil Prodigy Vitor Roque, Confirms Agent

FC Barcelona seem to have made their first offer for Athletico Paranaense and Brazil prodigy Vitor Roque, as confirmed by the player’s agent.

Roque is on a high after winning the South American U20 Championship with his country in Colombia where he was the top scorer on six goals.

As has long been reported, Barca have been interested in the striker, who can also operate as a winger, for some time and see him as a medium term replacement for Robert Lewandoswki while a potential ‘new Luis Suarez’.

Roque’s club are said to want €35-40mn ($37.7-43mn) for the 17-year-old who becomes of adult age on the 28th of this month.

According to his agent Andre Cury, however, who was once Barca’s representative in Brazil, the Catalans have already tabled an offer that fell short of this mark.

“There was already a proposal, but it was rejected. There was an English club, I don’t want to give names, a Spanish club that already made an offer, an Italian one,” Cury told Globoesporte, in a possible nod to FC Barcelona.

“We got more or less a value of €25mn ($27mn), and we immediately rejected it, because I understand that the player has a higher value than that, and because some players were sold in Brazil for €20mn (21.5mn).”

“Vitor Roque is a boy with whom we started working on this project five years ago,” Cury continued. “This past year Athletico Paranense was interested in him, even paying the player’s release clause [at Cruzeiro].

“Vitor thought it was a good project for the Brazilian first division and the Libertadores, and Cruzeiro was in Serie B. We got the project right, Vitor Roque arrived in April and, in October, he was fighting to be the best player in South America in the Libertadores.

“In the end, he was runner-up, qualifying directly for Libertadores 2023. It was a very good year”, reflected Cury.

Cury went on to describe Roque as boasting all the “physical, mental and technical characteristics to be playing for a great club in Europe” while a throwback to the number ‘9’ strikers of old such as Karim Benzema, Edinson Cavani and Robert Lewandowski.

What also makes him interesting to Barca is the fact that Roque can operate on the wing too. Put simply, due to his relatively low price tag and reports that Athletico would allow them to pay in installments, Barca must up the ante and play seriously so as not to miss out on Roque to a continental rival.