Eric Garcia is FC Barcelona's second signing
FC Barcelona and Eric Garcia have reached an agreement for the player to join the Club from 1 July one his contract with Manchester City is at an end. The player will sign a contract until the end of the 2025/26 season and his buy out clause is set at 400 million euros.
Eric Garcia will be presented today, Tuesday, as a Barça player with the following schedule (all time CEST):
- At 1.15pm, signing of the contract in the President Suñol suite in a private event.
- At 2.00pm, photo session on the pitch at Camp Nou.
- At 2.30pm, presentation and subsequent press conference at the Auditori 1899.
Due to anti-Covid mesures the presentation of Barça's new signing will take place behind closed doors and it can be followed all over the world from 1.00pm on Barça TV+.
A defender for the future
The return of 20 year old Eric Garcia to FC Barcelona is now official. The defender joined the Barça Academy in 2008 and continued his development at La Masia until 2017 when he left for Manchester City where he spent four seasons featuring at U-19, U-23 level and for the first team.
A payer with a great future ahead of him, he is a defender very much suited to Barça’s style of play. Captain at every level during his time at La Masia, always with the number 3 on his back, Garcia grew up with Carles Puyol, Gerard Piqué and Javier Mascherano as his role models.
Excellent at bringing the ball out from the back and an ability to read the game well, he has been able to improve further on his skills during his time in England with Manchester City.
In Manchester he initially formed part of the U-19 squad but his talent attracted the attention of the first team and he made his debut for Manchester City at the age of just 17 in a Carabao Cup game against Leicester City in December 2018. Garcia went to play in both legs of the semi-final against Burton Albion in the same competition later that season.
The departure of Vincent Kompany and injury to Aymeric Laporte opened up more opportunities for the Catalan defender and in total he made more than 30 appearances for Pep Guardiola’s team.
The defender’s rise also caught the attention of national team coach Luis Enrique Martínez and after representing Spain at U-16, U-17 and U-21 level, he became the first players from the Barça Academy to make his debut for the full national side.
There he coincided once again with Ansu Fati, a player Garcia featured alongside for five seasons in the FC Barcelona youth teams. Friends since then, the two players will be side by side once again, fulfilling the dream they had as youngsters of playing together for the first team at Camp Nou.