Koeman will line up half a team that already beat Athletic in 2015

Ter Stegen, Piqué, Alba, Busquets and Messi played in the Cup final of that edition (3-1)

In the Basque team only Iñaki Willians will repeat and it is possible that Balenziaga.

Barça could line up against Athletic, in the final of the Copa del Rey on April 17, half of the starting eleven who won the 2015 edition 3-1. Koeman is in a position to play with his starting spine, made up of Ter Stegen, Piqué, Alba, Busquets and Messi.

It will be six years after that May 30, 2015 that he won with a double from Messi and another from Neymar. The first of the Argentine crack was spectacular again. Alves, Mascherano, Iniesta Rakitic, Luis Suárez and Neymar completed the eleven that Luis Enrique took out at the Camp Nou with Velasco Carballo arbitration. In Athletic they could only repeat two: Balenziaga as a left back if the starter does not arrive on time and Iñaki Willians, who completed the entire match. Herrerín may not even be called up because he has already said that he wants to leave the club.

Koeman already has all the defense, at the expense of the discharge of Neto and could complete the eleven with Dest, Mingueza, Lenglet, De Jong, Pedri and Dembélé. Or with Griezmann if he plays 4-3-3. The next training sessions will be key to shaping the title.

The record salary that Raiola asks Real Madrid for Haaland

The representative wants an astronomical salary higher than any soccer player, because he considers that his player is worth it.

Reps handle better than anyone when their players have multiple offers or at least multiple clubs are interested. Raiola, representative of Haaland, is one of the best at that. Real Madrid knows him because he had deals with him when he was very interested in Pogba. They already know that he is a bone and that he is going to do everything possible to get the highest bidder.

Haaland is a world yet to be explored and there are still several twists and turns about the future of the Norwegian. Sometimes it seems that he is close to Real Madrid and sometimes it seems that he is far away. Yesterday Raiola made public what Dortmund sports director Michael Zorc had told him: "He has made it clear to me that he is not going to sell it this summer," Raiola said in statements to the German portal Sport1.

And then he threw the hook: "I am not of the same opinion, but I respect that." That is to mark positions, because it is still too early to launch a direct confrontation with the German club. At the end of the day, the one who has the future of the star in its power is the club with which he has a contract until 2024. If Dortmund closed in on the footballer, there would be nothing to do: "There is no war between us and Dortmund, by no means, ”continued Raiola.

But the representative plays several bands and has, as a good agent, several cards under his command. One is the negotiation with Dortmund, which he needs to convince to facilitate the departure of his star striker as much as possible or at least not make it impossible.

The other is to show the product, which is what he did a few days ago when he toured Spain, visiting Barcelona and Real Madrid on a tour that was nothing more than an exhibition of his strength, of how interested his represented.

With the two greats of Spain so interested, Raiola is going to bet big. According to the Daily Mirror newspaper, the representative is looking for a record: that his footballer collects one million pounds a week, which would be slightly more than 1,150,000 euros at the current exchange rate. An outrage, a salary of more than 52 million euros for a player of only 20 years old and for whom he yearns for half Europe, but who, for now, has only played for Borussia Dortmund.

It is a risky bet and it is not clear that it will turn out well, especially in these times of pandemic in which the main war of the big clubs is to reduce the wage bill as much as possible. Madrid and Barcelona have had a hard time convincing their squads that they have to reduce their chips. It is very difficult to sell to the players that another footballer is going to arrive who is going to break the salary scale when they have been asked to sacrifice for the austerity to which we are obliged.

But Raiola knows that the fundamental thing in a negotiation is where the starting point is to start talking. If his first figure is 52 million, the other party starts negotiating from there, so Raiola would have already won the first hand.