Messi wants €220 million superstar at Barcelona, Real Madrid superstar set for shock exit to join Barcelona and more: Transfer Roundup, 19 May 2019

By Shambhu Ajith

Modified May 21, 2019 07:36 GMT

Lionel Messi has decided who he wants to partner up with

Isco wants to join Barcelona

A lot of Real Madrid players may have played their last match for the Merengues. With Zinedine Zidane expected to oversee a major summer clear out sale, several high-profile stars or 'Galacticos', as they are fashionably titled, could be well on their way out of the club.

One player who has been tipped for an exit since the beginning of the recently concluded season is Spanish international Isco Alarcon. Having fallen out of favour with the Santiago Bernabeu crowd, Isco was expected to depart in January. However, he decided to stick around.

The latest reports claim that he has now warned the club once again that he wants to play alongside Lionel Messi. This has not gone down well with the Real Madrid top brass at all. Isco is running out of friends in the dressing room and Los Blancos are open to selling him. Though it remains to be seen whether or not Barcelona will launch a move for him.

About the author

Shambhu is a European and international football journalist at Sportskeeda who focuses on previews, listicles and news articles. An ardent Manchester United supporter since before his teenage years, he started following the Red Devils by age 10 watching MUTV on television. Shambhu is also a highly-revered rapper and a playback singer on Spotify, having a whopping 1 million monthly listeners.

For his articles, Shambhu believes in triple-checking every piece of information, relying on trusted websites like Transfermarkt and Opta, and staying away from speculative publications. He believes that his law degree helped him to be more articulate and meticulous with his content and one of his core strengths is seamlessly involving emotion in his write-ups owing to the love for the sport. For Sportskeeda, has done exclusive interviews with Spanish legends Gaizka Mendieta and Fernando Morientes so far, and his articles boast of a huge readership of close to 50 million.

Shambhu's favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and the Argentine attaining glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment. He believes only Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland could replicate Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo's rivalry in the years to come. His favorite manager is Sir Alex Ferguson due to the Scot's unmatched longevity at the top.

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Edited by Sripad