Barça eyes Lautaro Martínez as its 120M euro plan B

According to Fichajes.net (13 August 2026), Inter Milan has set a price of 120 million euros to release striker Lautaro Martínez toward FC Barcelona, and the Catalan club is treating him as its numbered plan B for a centre-forward. The same outlet reports that Barcelona wanted a meeting it described as "definitive" with Julián Álvarez's agents before 18 August, and that if those talks failed, the club would consider sending a formal 120 million euro offer to Inter for the Argentine. A caveat matters here: no source has confirmed such an offer has actually been sent, and that 18 August date is reported as an internal decision milestone, not a publicly settled fact.

The reason Álvarez remains the first option, and why the whole affair is stuck, comes from a different desk. El Español (10 August 2026) reports that Atlético de Madrid is holding firm on its veto, with its leadership (Miguel Ángel Gil Marín and president Enrique Cerezo) making clear they have no intention of selling him this summer. Infobae (14 August 2026) adds a telling detail no transfer rumour alone would give you: Álvarez himself asked to be left out of Atlético's friendly against Olympique de Marseille (2-1), a sign of how tense his situation has become. Goal.com, writing in mid-August, notes he was also kept out of the Liga opener against Málaga, though Diego Simeone framed that as a matter of physical condition after the World Cup with Argentina rather than a transfer standoff.

On the man Barcelona would settle for, Fichajes.net fills in the profile: Lautaro Martínez is 28, under contract with Inter until June 2029 (which complicates any move), and coming off a 2025/2026 season the outlet credits with 22 goals and 6 assists in 41 official matches, capped by winning the Serie A title. The same report says coach Hansi Flick sees him as a way to "complete the reference in the box" alongside Raphinha and Lamine Yamal up front. Those statistics come from a single source and have not been checked against official Inter or specialist data, so treat the exact numbers with care.

Why this is bubbling up across Spain today, per Google Trends, is timing. Fichajes.net stresses that any Lautaro operation would hinge on Barcelona first generating financial room through player sales before the summer window shuts, so the club cannot simply pivot from one 120 million euro target to another without selling. With the reported 18 August deadline now behind us and the Álvarez file still frozen by Atlético's stance, Spanish outlets are reading the Lautaro track as the live alternative rather than a distant hypothesis.

Sources : Fichajes.net, El Español, Infobae, Goal.com, Google Trends.