It's finally official and Liverpool have their highly anticipated Champions League-winning winger. Bradley Barcola has officially joined the Reds from Paris Saint-Germain on a five-year deal for a fee of roughly £123 million after both clubs went back and forth for quite some time to sort out all of the financial details.
The pacey French winger joins Andoni Iraola's side as the marquee signing of the summer transfer window as it now looks like Cody Gakpo is on his way out with Liverpool also eager to sign one of Ismailia Sarr from Crystal Palace or Yankuba Minteh from Brighton and Hove Albion before Tuesday's deadline.
Barcola To Get The Number 29 Kit, And For Good Reason
Barcola is set to wear the number 29 kit for Liverpool, a number he also wore during his spell at PSG, and there's a reason why he chose this shirt number earlier in his career.
The winger had said in an interview some time ago that his number choice is based on a fictional player he used in career mode playing FIFA (now known as EA FC). He explained that he often played as the franchise's Alex Hunter, a fictional character used in The Journey part of career mode that was predominantly featured in FIFA 17, 18, and 19.
"It’s actually a funny story. When I was younger, I used to play FIFA. In the story mode with Alex Hunter, this number became symbolic for me. I thought to myself: 'The day I go pro, it’ll be number 29.' And here I am, I adopted it, and now I’ll never let it go," the French international explained.
Hungry For Success
In a cosmic sort of way, Barcola's rise to prominence with PSG to get him to where he is now, in a way, mirrors the career mode of Alex Hunter in some of the older FIFA games. The Frenchman worked his way through Lyon's youth teams to eventually get to PSG.
As things stood prior to his move to Liverpool, though, he was in a crowded attack for the Ligue 1 and Champions League winners amongst the likes of Ousmane Dembélé, Ferran Torres, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, and Désiré Doué.
As the dawn of a new chapter is on the horizon for Barcola, he is very much looking forward to the new challenge at Liverpool and trying to bring more silverware back to Merseyside.
"It's a great pride to be able to play for Liverpool. I'm very happy. It took a long time but I'm really happy today to be able to play for Liverpool and all I want is to be on the pitch and be able to play. I hope to achieve very big things. First of all, winning the Premier League – it's one of my biggest dreams in my life. It is to do that and to stay in this team in the long term – that's why I signed a long contract – and I hope I can do it," Liverpool's new number 29 enthused.
