Xavi and Laporta divided over Ez Abde's future at Barcelona
The economic frenzy that Barça are experiencing during the summer of 2022 also has other important aspects, although the economic amount is not so high. The club is more interested in salary reductions for Busquets or Xavi, the sale of De Jong or continuing to sell off grandma's jewels and pawning the club for ever and ever. But Koeman's crisis brought names like Ez Abde to the fore.
The Moroccan player is a first class asset for the club, although Xavi is not counting on him for the 2022-2023 season. During the US tour Abde played 38 minutes against Inter Miami and 14 against Juventus. Before that, he had played half a half against Olot in Barça's opening game of the new season.
The Catalan club do not believe it is advisable to let go of a 20-year-old player who showed a lot in the four games he played for the first team during January 2022, including the Clasico where they lost 2-3 with Abde playing 64 minutes at the Camp Nou.
The Beni Melal winger has been revalued at eight million euros and his contract has been extended until June 2026. The money, in this case, does not matter so much to the club as the possibility of finding him an environment where he can have minutes and continue to demonstrate his abilities for a future return.
At the moment, the best positioned team for Ez Abde to stay in Spain and in the Primera División is Cádiz. Sergio García would be willing to give him minutes and the demands of the top flight would reinforce his growth.
In addition, this season has the conditioning factor of the Qatar World Cup to be played in November and December 2022. If Abde's first months in the Cadiz team are good, he would have many options to be called up by Morocco to play in the World Cup and face teams like Belgium, Croatia and Canada in the group stage. All this will depend on who is the coach of the North African team. Vahid Halilhodžić may not make it to that date as coach and his replacement would be Walid Regragui, coach of Qatar's Al-Duhail SC and champions of the Asian Champions League in 2022.
Ez Abde will continue to be under pressure from the RFEF who already in December 2021 managed to get the player to withdraw from the Africa Cup of Nations in Cameroon. The player claimed he was injured and had an unavoidable commitment to Barça to avoid the tournament, but he was not called up by Luis Enrique either.
When FIFA demands the list of players who will play in the World Cup from the federations, Abde could be called up by Morocco and hand over his sporting future to the national team of the country where he was born, although it cannot be ruled out that Luis Enrique may even call him up in a pre-list to make the young Barça player doubt. It should be remembered that the Asturian coach has already called up Gavi with just a few minutes played in the first team to play at Euro 2020.
