Barcelona down to two candidates for third-choice goalkeeper role | OneFootball

Despite significant progress made on this front this summer, FC Barcelona continue to address the goalkeeper position. As things stand, they are still to finalize the departure of Marc-Andre ter Stegen, as his loan move to Ajax has hit some roadblocks and is now expected to be completed within this week.

Going forward, Hansi Flick has already decided that Joan Garcia will be his first-choice goalkeeper, and Wojciech Szczesny, who will be staying with the Catalan club for another season, will be his deputy.

However, the position of the third-choice goalkeeper remains open, but some decisions have also been made in this regard. For instance, Iker Rodriguez, the most promising goalkeeper coming from the Blaugrana academy, is not going to take this role next season, as Flick wants him to play consistently with the reserve team to maximize his chances of getting consistent competitive minutes.

As a result, Mundo Deportivo reports that there are two candidates left vying for the third-goalkeeper position, Aaron Yaakobishvili and Eder Aller.

So far this preseason, the Hungarian has trained with the first team while the Spaniard has trained mostly with the reserve team. This is in contrast to the last season, when Aller remained on the first team bench as the third-choice goalkeeper for Hansi Flick, while Yaakobishvili played on loan at Andorra.

The Catalans have already addressed other options for this position. Two other players who had played this role of third-choice goalkeeper for Flick at Barcelona in previous seasons, Ander Astralaga and Diego Kochen have already left, the former after ending his contract and the latter on loan to the Danish side Lyngby. Similarly, Inaki Pena has already joined the Greek side Panathinaikos after having returned to Barcelona this summer, having played for the La Liga side Elche on loan last season.