Óscar Mingueza will face FC Barcelona next Saturday with his future up in the air. The right-back has a contract until June 2026, but seems determined to try his luck at another team in 2025, a decision that could benefit the Barça team. The one from Santa Perpètua de Mogoda arrived at Balaídos at 'zero cost' in 2022, but Barça reserved 50% of its sporting rights.
Although the defender had the approval of Xavi Hernández, the need to free up places in the squad to be able to register the reinforcements signed that summer forced the culés to give him a release card. In that sense, Barça hopes to cash in on one of the defenders trained at La Masia who has managed to establish himself in LaLiga, currently being a fixture in coach Claudio Giráldez's XI.
Mingueza seems ready to try his luck at a big team
In two years, Mingueza has accumulated 76 official matches with the Galician team, with 4 goals and 8 assists. 2024/25 has been, by far, his best season at Balaídos, adding 5 assists in the first 12 days of LaLiga, in addition to a couple of goals in a total of 918 minutes of action. The Catalan only missed out on playing against Atlético de Madrid due to a thigh injury and has played 90 minutes in 9 games.
At 25 years old, Óscar seems ready to make the leap to a great level next year, as long as he manages to maintain the level shown in the first three months of this season. At the moment, his market value reaches 12 million euros, double what he was worth when he joined Celta a couple of years ago. This is good news for Barça, in order to get a good profit from a future sale.
Barça would have already ruled out the return of Mingueza
However, the Galicians will try to renew him before this happens, especially with the aim of updating his termination clause. Barça considered the possibility of recovering him next summer to protect the right side, but this alternative seems to have been completely ruled out after Jules Koundé's great start to the season.
This being the case, if he leaves Celta, Mingueza hopes to reach a team where he can fight for ownership, something that would practically be ruled out in Barcelona while Koundé is in the squad. The culés only have, for now, Héctor Fort as an alternative to the Frenchman, waiting for the return of Ronald Araújo also in conditions to cover the side. With the first team, Óscar managed to play 66 official matches between 2020 and 2022 in which he scored a couple of goals and 5 assists.