Barcelona have begun talks to renew 23-year-old academy graduate

Talks regarding goalkeeper Inaki Pena’s contract extension have begun within the club as it is being said that even the player, despite not starting a single game this season is willing to continue the relationship with the team.

As reported by journalist Santi Ovalle while writing for SER, although the parties involved are not really close to finalising any sort of deal, everyone is quite optimistic about the situation mostly because the player does not want to leave in the first place.

The 23-year-old stopper has been with Barcelona since 2012. The winner of the UEFA Youth League in the 2017-18 campaign, Pena has been trained to the core in order to nail down the first team spot once Marc-Andre ter Stegen ends his tenure.

Although it is still a distant dream as the German is only 30, the groundwork is already laid and his loan tenure with Galatarsay for the second part of the 2021-22 season was duly a part of it.

The stopper even featured against Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League and the performance he put in was enough to convince the management of his capabilities. 

“He [pena] has relentless footwork, solvency under the posts, great agility and is good up top,” a club source was quoted as saying by the aforementioned source.

“We already knew him but this match [against Barcelona] helped him to show that he was useful for Barça,” the source added.

Pena knew going away to gather more experience was the key as Neto was not leaving, meaning that the fight for one place was contested between three players. 

While this was a losing battle anyway, he did all he could at Galatasary before losing his place back to Fernando Muslera.

“He can contribute the same as Ter Stegen, good footwork, very calm and with a lot of confidence. The responsibility does not weigh on him,” said the Galatasaray coach Domenec Torrent about the stopper.

Personally for Pena, although he has not featured for the team this season, he shares a great relationship with ter Stegen, with SER even quoting that ‘he looks up to him a lot’. And now that his contract is about to expire in 2023, he is willingly looking forward to spending more years with the team.