Daily sport newspaper SPORT reported today that FC Barcelona´s 17-year old jewel Giovanni Dos Santos has been the transfer target of Olympique Lyon and several Italian Serie A teams during the Jasnuary transfer window. The 17-year-old Mexican "Ronaldinho II" is said to be one of the most promising young players in World football, who shined in last year´s U17 World Cup. Except for the pre-season tour to the USA & Mexico as well as the FIFA World Cup in Japan, Giovanni Dos Santos is lacking first team football, while playing for Barcelona B with another super talent 16-year old Bojan Krkric.


The lack of first team involvement left youngster Giovanni seriously frustrated and willing to leave FC Barcelona to gain professional first team experience. Several top clubs from the English Premier League, Italy´s Serie A and France´s Ligue 1 were interested, but Olympique Lyon were willing to negotiate and guarantee him first team action.


However, FC Barcelona, who are trying to protect their super asset, from throwing him to early into the cold water, refused to negotiate and Lyon were unwilling to meet his buy-out clause: a stunning € 30 mill.!!!
Certain clubs from Italy´s Serie A would have paid up the price for the gifted youngster, but Giovanni turned down a move to a foreign club just to warm the bench.


Also Segunda A team Xerez was willing to take youngster Giovanni Dos Santos on loan but Barca´s technical secretary Txiki Begiristain rejected strongly such a move. Txiki finally convinced Giovanni to stay with the Blaugrana and assured Giovanni his time would come soon and that there will be plenty first team opportunities in the near future.


Mexican Dos Santos will also apply for double nationality and once he receives a Spanish Passport, he will not occupy a rare foreign place in the Barca team, which will help his promotion to the first team significantly.


Here is a video with a few scences that show his class, including his sensational goal in pre-season against Aarhus:

And another Video with some more Highlights from the U17 World Cup in 2005 when he was 16 years old: