Barcelona set for Kounde-style renewal for anonther key player ahead of 2026 World Cup | OneFootball

The contract policy at FC Barcelona has quietly shifted over the past year. Gone is the habit of waiting, hesitating, and allowing uncertainty to linger until it becomes unavoidable. The club’s leadership has learned sometimes painfully that clarity matters as much as talent, especially when a player’s importance is still growing rather than peaking.

That philosophy is increasingly relevant in a squad where hierarchy is changing faster than expected. Roles once thought settled have been redefined, and players previously seen as rotational have forced their way into the centre of the project. Few embody that transformation more clearly than Ferran Torres.

A precedent exists in Jules Kounde’s contract extension, which was agreed well before urgency demanded it, providing the club with stability and long-term security. According to SPORT, Barcelona now appear ready to take the same approach with Torres, ensuring clarity and continuity ahead of the 2026 World Cup.

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At 25, Torres began the season with a simple but ambitious objective to become an undisputed starter, and what followed has been one of the most convincing individual evolutions of the campaign.

Once viewed primarily as a winger, a role he mastered at Valencia, Manchester City, and with Spain, Torres has reinvented himself as a dependable No.9. In doing so, he has not only earned Hansi Flick’s trust but has also overtaken Robert Lewandowski in the attacking rotation across multiple stretches of the season.

His numbers reflect that shift as the 25-year-old has scored 13 goals in the first half of the campaign: 11 in La Liga and two in the Champions League, a sharp rise from the five he had managed at the same stage last year.

This improvement did not begin overnight. His upward curve was already visible during Xavi Hernandez’s final months, and it reached full expression in last season’s Copa del Rey, where he finished as Barca’s top scorer on the way to the title.

Behind the goals lies a level of professionalism that has impressed the coaching staff. Ferran is among the squad’s strongest physical profiles, meticulous with recovery, diet, and training. Even during the Christmas break, his routine barely changes, a detail that explains why Flick considers him one of the most reliable players in the group.

With Torres’s contract running until 2027 and his market value rising in a landscape short of elite centre-forwards, the club does not want to let time create leverage elsewhere.

President Joan Laporta has already made clear that Barca intend to avoid late renewals, pointing to past situations they do not wish to repeat.

Renewing Ferran’s contract before the 2026 World Cup, where he is set to be a key figure for Spain, would give Barcelona certainty and reward a player who has earned his place. Torres is no longer a project and is no longer a pillar in the present, but increasingly, part of the future.