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Ever since Toni Kroos' retirement following the 2023/24 season, Real Madrid have been on a two-year-long wild goose chase trying to find their perfect replacement for the German legend. The most logical option was to turn to Luka Modric in the latter stages of his career, but the club decided to let him leave and join AC Milan.
The club has since tried several players in Kroos' midfield role, such as Jude Bellingham, Aurelien Tchouameni, and Fede Valverde, but has failed to find anyone close to the German's playmaking. As a result, the club has been doing its homework on the transfer market, assessing which midfield options are available to bring back the consistency the team has desperately been missing.
In a somewhat shocking turn of events, a Barcelona midfielder has been added to Florentino Perez's wishlist, and if this deal were to come to fruition, it would set the footballing world on fire, the likes of which we haven't seen in over two decades.
Florentino Perez controversially planning to bring Barcelona star to Real Madrid
As reported by The Touchline on X, Perez is a huge admirer of Pedri and dreams of bringing him to the Estadio Bernabeu. The Madrid president wants to repeat the Luis Figo deal from 2000 and is planning to sign Pedri in the summer of 2027.
The Figo deal is still, to this day, arguably the most controversial transfer in football history, and it happened all the way back in 2000. In an era with social media, Pedri could get far worse of a reaction than Figo did when he had a severed pig's head thrown at him should he make the forbidden jump to Los Blancos.
The 23-year-old has been a cornerstone for Barca since his arrival from Las Palmas in 2020 and embodies everything the Catalans look for in their midfielders. While not quite at their level yet, he seems on course to be this generation's version of Xavi or Andres Iniesta, already making a name for himself as a hero at Camp Nou.
In the grand scheme of things, a move for Pedri seems like nothing but hopes and dreams from Perez. The midfielder is under contract until 2030 and bleeds Barca through and through and would rather retire than pull on a Real Madrid shirt. However, the same was said about Figo and Ronaldo Nazario back in the day, and they ultimately did end up moving to Madrid, so in the modern game, where loyalty is hard to come by, it isn't really that far-fetched.