Why Alvaro Cortes fits Barcelona better than a January signing — Opinion | OneFootball

In The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho tells a simple truth through a long journey: that people often travel the world searching for what has been waiting for them at home all along. The shepherd crosses deserts, listens to kings, speaks to the wind, only to discover that the treasure was buried beneath the place where he first dreamed.

Barcelona, at times, behave like that shepherd.

When problems appear, the instinct is to move. To search. To scan the horizon for answers with price tags and reputations attached. Injuries in defence? Look to the market. Uncertainty at centre-back? Explore Europe. Draw up shortlists, make calls, and read reports. Surely the solution must exist somewhere else. But football, like Coelho’s fable, has a way of humbling those who rush past quiet truths.

While Barcelona debate centre-backs, Alvaro Cortes has been doing something far less dramatic and far more meaningful. He has been becoming ready. The youngster does not arrive wrapped in prophecy. There are no viral clips, no transfer sagas, no fevered expectation.

His story is slower, more fragile, and therefore more honest. Signed from Zaragoza in 2021, he learned his craft without shortcuts. Youth football. Loan spells. Growth that wasn’t linear. Then the long silence of injury, the kind that breaks many careers before they ever begin.

In The Alchemist, the boy learns that the universe tests commitment before rewarding it. Cortes was tested. An entire season passed him by, his momentum stolen just as he was beginning to touch the first team environment. For many, that is where belief fades. For him, it became the forge.

When he returned, he did not play as someone desperate to catch up. He played like someone who understood time differently. Calm. Grounded. Patient. Even as Barca Atletic struggled and ultimately fell a division, Cortes stood out not because he was spectacular, but because he was reliable. Because nothing about him felt rushed.

And that is where the comparison to The Alchemist becomes unavoidable. Barcelona’s philosophy has always preached patience. Trust in the process. Faith in youth. Yet history shows that these beliefs are hardest to uphold when urgency arrives. When injuries pile up. When the calendar tightens. When the pressure is no longer theoretical.

It is easy to trust the academy when things are calm. It is far harder when the defence is stretched, and every decision feels like a verdict.

Cortes is not a miracle solution. He is something more subtle, and perhaps more Barcelona in spirit. A left-footed centre-back with positional intelligence, aerial strength, and a natural understanding of how to build from the back. At 1.90 metres, he offers presence without clumsiness. Authority without arrogance. His passing does not demand applause; it invites continuity.

In the Intercontinental U-20 final at the Maracana, under the weight of expectation in a stadium that magnifies nerves, Cortes played like a man who had already accepted the moment. He defended with timing, stepped forward with conviction, and even scored. But the goal was incidental. What mattered was how little the occasion disturbed him.

In Coelho’s story, the shepherd learns to read omens, signs that reveal when the time is right. Football has its own omens. And Barcelona’s current situation feels like one.

Defensive injuries, tactical improvisation, and a coach forced to reassign full-backs and midfielders to survive. All the while, a centre-back who fits the system, the philosophy, and the culture is training quietly nearby, waiting not for permission, but for recognition.

The danger for Barcelona is not that they will sign a centre-back. It is that they will forget to look inward before doing so. Because promoting Cortes would not be an act of desperation. It would be an act of faith, the very principle the club claims as its compass. He does not need to be a saviour. He needs to be a step. A chance. A continuation of a story already being written.

In The Alchemist, the treasure is not gold. It is understanding. The realization that the journey mattered because it prepared the seeker for what was always his. Cortes has made the journey. Through youth teams, loans, injuries, and obscurity. He has learned patience in a sport that rarely rewards it. If Barcelona are wise, they will see the lesson before them.

Sometimes, the club does not need to search the desert. Sometimes, the answer is already standing at the gates, waiting for belief to catch up with readiness.

And like the shepherd who finally digs where he first dreamed, Barcelona may yet discover that their quietest solution was their most faithful one all along.