Barcelona Plays in the Benfica academy

The sporting director at Barcelona, Robert Fernandez, has been following Umaro Embalo, a young player currently playing in one of Benfica's youth teams, for some time.

Reports on him have been excellent so far and a possible move to Catalonia is pending the evolution of this promising Portuguese wunderkind.

Embalo is just 16 years old but Barcelona have been tracking him for several seasons.

Although in the last year or so preferences turned towards Vinicius Jr., the fact that Real Madrid signed the Brazilian has meant that the Catalans have reopened their interest.

The player has performed to a very high standard in both the Portuguese League and in the Youth League, which has led to him being called up by the Portuguese U17 team.

An issue that Barcelona will find is the competition with other big European clubs.

Manchester United are interested as are Leipzig, and one of those has already made an offer of 13 million euros that Benfica rejected.

At this time, Barcelona have no intention of making an offer for him.

They are waiting on his evolution and the offer, if it is finally produced, would be made next summer.