Sell or persist: What should Barcelona do with Jules Kounde? | OneFootball

There are some players whose future becomes a debate because they are not good enough for Barcelona.

Jules Kounde is not one of them.

The French defender finds himself at the centre of a very different conversation this summer, one that says much about Barcelona’s current reality as it does about the player himself.

At 27 years old and under contract until 2030, and still one of the most reliable defenders in Europe when in form, Kounde represents something increasingly rare in modern football: a valuable sporting asset who is perhaps an even more valuable financial asset.

This duality is what prompts a question on whether Barcelona should be open to the possibility of selling Kounde.

Barcelona are no longer operating in a world where they can make decisions only keeping the sporting aspect in mind.

Every contract, every renewal and every signing carries a second layer of meaning. Although seemingly out of the woods this summer, they still need to be very careful on how they use their money.

History suggests that two to three seasons of financial mismanagement is more than enough to set the club back by a few years, and they need to be extremely careful not to get sucked into that trap again.

And that raises an uncomfortable question.

Should Barcelona cash in while his value remains high?

Or should they persist with a player who has shown how good he can be when he is in full flow?

The sacrifice nobody talks about

Kounde was signed in 2022 from Sevilla. (Photo by Aitor Alcalde/Getty Images)

Kounde’s Barcelona story has never quite unfolded as planned. He was signed in 2022 from Sevilla to be the team’s long-term centre-back solution.

The Catalan club thought they were signing one of Europe’s most complete young central defenders. Instead, circumstances intervened.

Squad imbalances, tactical necessities and the emergence of other central defenders gradually pushed him towards the right flank.

It initially looked like a temporary solution. With time, it turned into a permanent assignment.

Initially, there was resistance. Kounde was keen on playing in the position he had made a name for himself in, but slowly yet surely, he accepted it and grew into it.

Season after season, managers continued to ask questions of him and he kept answering them with aplomb.

He was expected to defend isolation situations against elite wingers, recover vast spaces during transitions, support build-up play, tuck inside as an auxiliary centre-back and provide stability whenever Barcelona committed numbers forward.

He made all this look very natural.

Until the 2024/25 season, Kounde’s Barca graph kept progressing linearly, but the 2025/26 season has taken a different shape.

By his own high standards, he has set for himself, the Frenchman had a forgettable campaign, looking completely out of sorts and struggling to lock down the right flank.

That said, this was just a minor blip in what has otherwise been an excellent career at Barcelona for the Frenchman.

The Lamine Yamal connection

Lamine and Kounde have a great partnership on the right. (Photo by Fran Santiago/Getty Images)

Perhaps the strongest favour for keeping Kounde in the squad is not the Frenchman himself.

It is about Lamine Yamal.

Barcelona’s teenage superstar has become the focal point of the attack. Everything tends to flow through his side of the pitch.

This changes the requirements of a right-back. The natural temptation in an attacking system is to go with an attack-minded overlapping full-back.

Yet, on the right flank, Barcelona have their primary creator and the full-back needs to support him in doing just that.

This is where Kounde excels. His natural tendency to keep things simple allows Lamine greater freedom. His defensive awareness also allows him to cover for the Spaniard defensively.

Their relationship is built on mutual trust. One causes chaos for the opposition. The other prevents chaos for his own team.

Removing Kounde from this system changes the entire ecosystem. It could be for the better. It could not. Either way, it comes with consequences.

The argument for selling

Should Barcelona sell Kounde? (Photo by Eric Alonso/Getty Images)

None of this means Barcelona should ignore the option of a sale. The financial argument exists for a reason, after all.

Kounde remains one of the few players in the squad capable of generating a significant transfer fee while carrying a significant market value. He is in the prime years of his career, respected and generating interest from the elite of Europe.

For Barcelona, searching for financial flexibility, those are attractive qualities. Every sporting director faces the same question, and it’s time for Deco to answer it with Kounde.

Is it better to sell a player one year too early or one year too late?

Barcelona have been guilty of holding on to players for longer than they should have in the past and cannot afford to make the same mistake with Kounde.

He is coming off a poor season but has still retained his market value and interest. One more poor season and his market value could plummet below recoverable from a Barcelona perspective.

Selling him now would be proactive.

The problem is that one bad season provides little evidence that a decline is on the cards for Kounde.

The warning signs

Like most players, Kounde has endured periods where his performances have fluctuated.

There have been moments this season when the fatigue appeared visible. There have been games where his concentration has dipped. There have been moments where he has seemed defensively lapse.

The workload he has carried over recent seasons has been immense. He plays almost every single minute for both club and country and that is bound to take a toll.

Few defenders in the game are asked to cover as much ground as Kounde is in Hansi Flick’s system. His leg has already seen a lot of kilometres.

All these are causes for concern that could prompt Barcelona to consider a sale for him this transfer window.

Persist, for now!

Barcelona have a big decision to make. (Photo by Eric Alonso/Getty Images)

Ultimately, the debate around Kounde boils down to one question.

The issue is not whether Barcelona should sell him. The issue is what will happen next after they sell him.

Replacing a right-back of Kounde’s ability isn’t going to be easy. That profile of players doesn’t come cheap either.

Yes, Hansi Flick also has the option of counting on La Masia prospects such as Xavi Espart and Hector Fort, but both those names seem more suited to be backups at this stage than automatic starters.

A sale becomes logical only if an opportunity creates itself in the transfer market.

Thus, the answer for now is to persist. Not blind persistence but more strategic.

Barcelona should continue to build with Kounde as a central piece of Flick’s defensive plans for the upcoming season, but also keep their eyes open to an opportunity.

There is no urgency to sell.

As Barcelona continue to build their team around gifted attackers, Kounde’s importance becomes even more significant.

He is not the perfect right-back. He may never be.

However, he is a compromise that makes a lot of sense for Flick and Barca and as right now, that is far more important than the tens of millions he would fetch the club in terms of transfer fee.