Martin Braithwaite may have been signed as an emergency response to the Barcelona injury problems in the attack, but the Dane wants to turn his stay at the club a long-term deal.
The 28-year-old, who joined Leganes at the end of February, signed a contract that lasts until the summer of 2024 but is optimistic that he will play for Barcelona beyond his current deal: “I am sure I am going to stay for even more than four and a half years. That’s how I see it in my head,” he told ESPN.
“Right now, I just want to go out and play, enjoy and win titles with this team because that is what I was brought here to do. At Barcelona, I am looking at all these legendary players that played here, and all the periods where they had some of the best teams, and so one of my goals is to be able to say I played in one of the best Barcelona sides of a generation.”
He is still in admiration of his previous team, however. “I cannot speak highly enough of Leganes,” Braithwaite said. “It was really special for me and the way they treated me when I had to leave. Sometimes when you leave a club, you can leave with mixed feelings, but they totally understood me. They told me that this was a once in a lifetime chance and so I had to take it. Of course, they felt it was not fair they could not go out and get a replacement, which I understand, but at the end of the day they were really nice to me.”
Barcelona charged Leganes the minimum fee release clause of EUR 18 million for Braithwaite, which did not go well with the club based in Madrid because it left them without a chance to sign a replacement in the midst of a relegation battle.
