Joao Felix made a stunning bet this summer.
"I’d love to play for Barça," he told Fabrizio Romano in July. "If it happens, it will be a dream come true for me."
Openly flirting with a top three LaLiga rival, whose finances were - and still are - so disastrous they had to scratch around for €3.5m to sign Oriol Romeu, is the definition of a high risk-high reward manoeuvre. Those statements burned what was left of the bridge connecting Felix to Atletico Madrid; meanwhile, Barça were seemingly waiting on payments from a German venture capital group before they could begin construction of their own bridge to save him.
Felix had to wait until the very last day of the transfer window for the clubs to hash out a deal: a loan, with no option to buy, and he’s taken a gargantuan wage cut to make registration possible. The six weeks that passed between the comments and the realisation of the dream were probably pretty terrifying, but the Portuguese’s all-in poker move appears to have secured the pot.
He’s playing with a big smile on his face. You can tell he feels right at home in a Barcelona shirt. Sure, he enjoyed his Chelsea loan stint and really embraced living in London, but this is different; this is… right. He’s finally playing for a top team that utilises a possession-heavy, attacking style and it suits him just as well as we all knew it would.
His average WhoScored rating sits at 7.05 in LaLiga and 8.04 in the Champions League - by far the highest ratings he’s had in years, the best since his breakout campaign with Benfica when he averaged 7.52. That was the season he produced 15 goals and seven assists in just 21 starts, a haul so strong he was named the crown prince of football.
In LaLiga at least, the production hasn’t quite flowed to that extent. Felix has one goal so far and has been a touch unlucky in his shooting - just as he was at Chelsea - in that his sweetly struck efforts keep fizzing a yard wide or smacking the post. He had one cruelly disallowed at the weekend that would have secured three points against Granada at the death.
That would have been the cherry on top of a brilliant performance, full of life and invention. His link-up play and rotations with Gavi and Ferran Torres had Granada’s back three performing miracle acts to keep up with them, somehow finding space in a five-yard square area packed with opposing defensive troops.
He’s essentially been given the role of "free" left winger in a 4-3-3 shape, able to drift inwards to central zones as left-back Alejandro Balde tears forward to supply the width. That makes Felix quite difficult to pick up, as he splits marking assignments as he wanders. It’s similar to the role he played at Benfica in 2019, and perhaps not coincidentally at all, his performance levels are inching back towards those levels.
Robert Lewandowski was injured this past weekend, but September showed that he and Felix are striking up a rapport. The Polish No.9 is evidently enjoying playing with someone a bit closer to him than usual, and rather than get in each other’s way, they feed off each other nicely.
Moving forward, there’s still a few things for manager Xavi to figure out - specifically with regard to how all of this works when Pedri returns to fitness. Felix is playing Gavi’s role from last season while Gavi deputises for Pedri. What happens when they’re all fit, plus Lamine Yamal, Raphinha and more all want a piece of the action? And Frenkie de Jong to slot in too?
It’s a good problem to have, as they say, and Xavi needs all of the weapons he can call upon given Barcelona are facing up to deep defensive blocks almost every single week now. They’ve already been tripped up by Getafe, who committed 19 fouls and got a red, Mallorca, 20 fouls and a red, and Granada, against whom they saw a last-minute winner chalked off for offside.
The next step is to overcome these scenarios, which will no doubt call for a fit, firing and smiling Joao Felix every time.
