Barcelona have signed 24-year-old Brazilian wing back Douglas Pereira for 4 million euros.
Douglas Pereira (born August 6th 1990) has only played in Brazil so far, starting his professional career in Goias before moving to Sao Paolo in 2012, where he played a total of 69 games, scoring four goals and helping the team win Copa Sudamericana in 2012. The 24-year-old defender has remained uncapped in the Brazilian national team, having only played for the U-20 squad.
The Brazilian is described as a fast, versatile player that is capable of playing both the right wing back and the right midfielder position, and even playing on the left side if necessary. His style of play mostly resembles one of Barcelona’s key players in the last couple of years, his fellow Brazilian Dani Alves who also plays the right wing back position. There are some issues concerning the player and his ability to play on a top level, most of which are related to his fitness and chronic groin injury, and the fact that he still hasn’t been able to start more than 30 games in a single season isn’t really reassuring.
At his unveiling at Camp Nou, Douglas said that he was very happy to have come to Barcelona, and that he felt that this was the biggest achievement in his career. The Brazilian defender added that the game is a lot different in Europe and that he will have a lot to learn in his new club.
With Dani Alves and Martin Montoya also competing for the right back spot, Douglas Pereira isn’t expected to get much playing time this year. But with the announced departure of Dani Alves next year, and the fact that transfers will be banned for Barcelona in the following two transfer windows, adding the Brazilian defender to the squad will bring more depth to the right back position. We will see if the player will make the squad in the next La Liga game against Athletic Bilbao.
Barcelona have spent a total of 4 million euros on this move with the possibility of another 1.5 million depending on the number of games the fast wing back plays. The player will stay at Camp Nou until 2019.
Douglas Pereira is the seventh acquisition of the Catalan Club this summer after Marc-André ter Stegen, Claudio Bravo, Ivan Rakitic, Thomas Vermaelen, Jérémy Mathieu and of course Louis Suarez
