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Victor Valdés is leaving Barcelona and it looks like he's finally found a landing spot.
It is Premier League's Liverpool FC, according to reports from Diario Metro. The English side wants to add quality competition to starting goalkeeper Mignolet, and they're willing to wait for Valdés to completely heal from his ACL tear that happened back in April. Victor is expected to get back to training by mid-October.
Two weeks ago, we reported that AS Monaco decided to break their pre-contract and not move on with the transfer talks. Barça offered to help Valdés with his rehab, but there were no signs of a new agreement between the two, and his deal will indeed end by June 30. After that, any team that wants Victor's services can get him for free, and just negotiate a personal agreement.
Liverpool had another Spanish goalkeeper defending the team's goalposts for a long time. Pepe Reina was the Reds' starter for eight years and more than 400 matches. Reina wasn't always the most reliable goalie on the planet, but he was pretty solid for most of his Anfield career, winning four titles and becoming a fan-favorite. He vowed he would stay in Liverpool until his retirement, but a bad 2012/13 campaign led to his loan to Serie A's Napoli, where he established himself as the team's starting GK. There were rumours about whether or not he was going to come back to Liverpool, but with Simon Mignolet's emergence as one of the best GKs of last season and the imminent signing of Valdés, he might stay in Italy a little bit longer.
Barcelona has moved on from VV and signed two GKs for next season. Marc-André Ter Stegen will be the starter, and former Real Sociedad and Chile international Claudio Bravo gets the backup slot, and is expected to sign his contract after the World Cup.
Valdés is the third Barça captain to leave the team. Legendary team leader Puyol retired, and Xavi Hernández is reportedly leaving to Qatar.
