Barcelona Rumors: Laporta Secretly Pursuing Striker Who Matched Lionel Messi's Latest Goal Feat

Barcelona may have already been working on a sensational transfer.

The departure of Lionel Messi and Antoine Griezmann has left Barcelona looking for an additional depth in its attack.

There has been a few names being linked to a move to Camp Nou and one of them is Porto FC forward Luis Diaz, Spanish outlet Marca reported.

Despite the financial woes, the report said that Barca president Joan Laporta is now “working behind the scenes” on the possible transfer of some “reinforcements,” including Diaz.

The 24-year-old has been exceptional in Porto, and the report added that Barcelona is not the only club keeping tabs on his situation.

However, the Catalans will still pursue Diaz as his transfer is expected to cost a “relatively reasonable €30 million ($35 million), a figure that thrills Laporta.

Aside from Barcelona, an earlier report said that English Premier League clubs such as Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur are also keen on landing Diaz with the latter rumored to have been tracking him “for years.”

Diaz’s entourage has yet to comment on the recent link-up with Barcelona but his agent Carlos Van Strahalen is already open to the idea of having to discuss his potential transfer in the future.

"Clearly, with the great Copa América that Luis [Diaz] did, the interest of the clubs has increased, but at the moment there is nothing concrete and the player continues to enjoy his holidays with his family and friends,” Van Strahalen said in July.

"Since before the Copa there were several clubs closely following Luis's process thanks to the good numbers he has registered in his two seasons in Portugal, but it is not a secret that after the tournament interest has increased, but they have been just approaches,” he continued. "I don't know anything about Barcelona at the moment."

Indeed, it wouldn’t be impossible for clubs across Europe’s top five leagues to notice Diaz’s fine form in club football.

In his seven Liga Bwin games so far in the 2021-22 season, he already registered a remarkable tally of five goals and one assist to his name.

What’s even more interesting, the reason many have been raving about Diaz in recent times was because of his impressive run in this year’s Copa America tournament.

To put some context to it, Diaz finished the prestigious South American football tournament equalling Messi’s tally of four goals.