Jules Kounde left the pitch looking relieved. The defender had played well – again.
Things seem to be returning to normal for Barcelona — who beat Las Palmas 1-0 at home on Saturday in their first La Liga game since the international break — and for him. It has not been an easy season for the Frenchman but his performances are returning to the level that he and the club know he is capable of.
When Kounde watched Barcelona sign Joao Cancelo on loan from Manchester City for the rest of the season on deadline day last September, he breathed a sigh of relief. The team finally had a pure full-back to use at right-back, meaning Kounde could stop filling in there and move infield to his natural position, centre-back.
He was very impressive in defence in his debut season at Barcelona, after joining from fellow La Liga side Sevilla. Many saw his arrival as one of the club’s most promising signings of summer 2022, even ahead of world-class striker Robert Lewandowski, who joined from Bayern Munich. This was because of his performances for Sevilla, the years he had ahead of him at the age of 23, and that he was chosen to solve one of Barcelona’s greatest problems on the pitch.
This worked like a charm and his performances helped transform their defence into the best in La Liga and one of the best throughout Europe. And this was with Kounde not playing in his favoured position. He was used to playing as a centre-back but in this team he was used at right-back. Despite this, his performances went from strength to strength and convinced the fans and head coach Xavi.
Kounde did what was best for the team but by the end of the season he was publicly, and privately to Xavi, making it clear that he wanted to revert to centre-back.
“It’s my favourite position and the one I like to play in. Xavi knows that,” he said in an interview with Spanish daily El Pais. “I will never refuse to play at full-back. I don’t look bad (there), but in my formative years I’ve always been a centre-back and I think it’s the position in which I have much more confidence.”
But come the summer window, strengthening at full-back was not among the priorities for Barcelona, who had more urgent areas to address — such as the huge void left by Sergio Busquets in central midfield. With not much to spend, finding a defensive pivot was their focus. And anyway, Xavi was quite happy with how the Kounde-Ousmane Dembele partnership was blossoming down the right.
Xavi spoke to Kounde and convinced him to accept this… but then everything changed in the middle of August when Dembele moved to Paris Saint-Germain. Later in the window, Cancelo became an option on loan, and Xavi liked the idea.
Kounde, as you can imagine, was delighted.
He had started the season playing as a centre-back, but several factors pushed him back out to the right.
First, there were obvious defensive issues when Cancelo played out there and Alejandro Balde on the left. Both full-backs helped more in attack than in defence and the team looked shaky at the back when they played together. Balde was also injured for a time too.
What also didn’t help Kounde’s cause were his own poor performances at the heart of the defence, culminating in his worst game for the club, the Spanish Super Cup final against Real Madrid in January. Madrid were easy 4-1 winners and Kounde, playing centre-back, was in the spotlight as he was often at fault for their goals.
The third factor was the emergence of Pau Cubarsi. The 17-year-old La Masia graduate ticks every box when it comes to what Barcelona would want from a centre-back. He has very good ball control and can play the first pass, he helps in creating play and is very solid in defence.
The centre-backs Barcelona have bought recently have almost never fitted in, unless they have gone through formative stages at the club, as was the case with Ronald Araujo. The now 25-year-old Uruguayan was signed as a 19-year-old in the summer of 2018 and spent two seasons with Barcelona B in the domestic third tier before moving up to the first-team squad.
All these reasons meant Kounde’s minutes, and position at the club, seemed under threat. There was concern at Barcelona about his performances, and the nature of them.
In a year in which the club will need to make more than one big sale to boost its finances, Kounde began to be positioned as a likely candidate to leave at the end of this season.
Barcelona have plenty of centre-backs, and until Kounde’s downturn in form, it had looked like Andreas Christensen would be the player they’d cash in on. Christensen had arrived as a free agent from Chelsea in that same summer 2022 window. That means although his performances have been convincing, he is a way for the club to make a nice profit. However, Christensen has now shown he can also play as a defensive pivot in midfield, so the poor performances of Kounde, together with the potential market he still has, pushed him into the shop window instead.
Aware of this, Kounde began to be more erratic in his play and seemed to have thrown in the towel, accepting that he was on his way out — although, it is true that his level of underperformance was matched by virtually the entire squad.
In recent weeks, however, something seems to have changed.
He was one of Barcelona’s better players in the second leg of their Champions League round-of-16 win against Napoli last month — perhaps only with the exception of Cubarsi, who was voted player of the match on his debut in the competition, just two months after turning 17.
Kounde seems to have resigned himself to the fact that full-back will be his role until the season ends in June and he is back to performing in a similar way to last year. This has contributed to the overall defensive improvement of the team: Barcelona are unbeaten in their past nine La Liga games and kept clean sheets in the most recent five, which have brought four wins and a draw.
Against Las Palmas on Saturday, he again showed that his level has risen after a poor start to 2024. He was impeccable in covering space on the right side of the pitch.
“Kounde has been playing many games at the top level, he always wants to improve,” Xavi said after the game. “He’s very committed, wherever he plays; he’s always there, he doesn’t get burnt by the ball, he thinks about defending. It’s difficult to find players who enjoy defending, and he does that.”
The improvement in his performance is attributed to several things. One is a physical improvement. The 25-year-old France international has been training on post-match days to improve his fitness. He has also shown willingness with the coaching staff during training to technically be able to adapt to other positions if the team need him to.
Kounde is again a reassuring figure in the Barcelona defence and, with Paris Saint-Germain up next in the first leg of a Champions League quarter-final in nine days’ time — La Liga is off next weekend, as it’s the Copa del Rey final between Athletic Bilbao and Mallorca on Saturday night — he seems to have earned his place back in Xavi’s starting XI.
(Photo: Nicolo Campo/LightRocket via Getty Images)
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