This article is part of Football FanCast's Transfer Focus series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent transfer news...

According to a fresh report coming from the Catalan outlet, Mundo Deportivo, Barcelona had the chance to sign the current 18-year-old Arsenal prodigy, Gabriel Martinelli, but they opted against it. This might come back to bite them.

What's the word, then?

The young talent signed for Arsenal back in the summer and has since then exploded onto the scene.

But the interesting part is that Barcelona had the chance to tie him down even before the Gunners got their hands on him.

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Mundo Deportivo revealed that the Catalan giants even had the 18-year-old prodigy at their own facilities and Martinelli played some football with their Juvenil A and Juvenil B squads respectively.

But after that one trial, the Blaugrana deemed him not good enough and decided not to proceed with his signing.

And seeing Martinelli now, that huge decision just might come back to bite them in the not so distant future.

"One of the greatest talents of this century"

Martinelli has recently literally exploded onto the scene.

The youngster has played a total of nine games for Arsenal and has already managed to bag seven goals and one assist in the process.

Not to mention that two of those goals were actually against current European champions, Liverpool, in the EFL Cup and that game also prompted Jurgen Klopp to label him "a talent of the century".

If he can continue developing like this in the future, the sky could be the limit and Barcelona might be banging their heads against the wall if and when that actually happens.

Not many players are deemed worthy of donning the Blaugrana kit and many youngsters surely get discarded quite often but Martinelli just might be one of those that got away for the Catalans.

Their poor judgement could mean they're missing out on a truly remarkable talent, if Klopp's words are anything to go by.

We'll have to wait and see what ends up happening.