Dani Alves will make a sensational Barcelona comeback according to Diario Sport, who say the 38-year-old Brazilian will be presented as the club's new signing next week pending a final meeting between club and player.

Alves had offered his services to Barcelona as a free agent but the club had knocked back the chance to resign the Brazil international with the emphasis on youth moving forward under new coach Xavi.

But Sport's Albert Roge claimed on Friday that new coach Xavi has now backed the signing and that it should be announced next week.

Dani Alves (above) will reportedly make a sensational Barcelona comeback and will be presented as the club's new signing next week 

If Alves comes back, five years after leaving the club, it will mean both Xavi and Pep Guardiola signed Alves when they took over as first team coach.

The Brazilian was Guardiola's first big signing in 2008. He was 25 then. He will be 39 next May.

Alves and Xavi have remained good friends and their combinations with Lionel Messi were the foundation on which so many Barcelona goals were built. 

It doesn't immediately spring to mind when the best right-flank partnerships are considered because Xavi was never what anyone would call a 'right-sided' midfielder but the now-Barcelona coach did start on the right of Barcelona's midfield three and he did have Alves behind him or, more often than not, in front of him as the eternally overlapping right-back in Barcelona's most successful seasons. They made triangles with Lionel Messi and Barcelona won trophies because of it.

If Alves arrives it will leave many Barcelona fans scratching their heads. Others argue even at 38 he will be better than some of Barcelona's current options in that position.

Even with Xavi's green light, wages could be a problem but Alves has told Barcelona he is well aware of the problems the club have with their salary cap and is ready to be the lowest earner in the first team squad. 

Barcelona's monumental failure to even come close to replacing Alves is one of the club's biggest failings over the last five years. 

The biggest error was trying to find someone similar instead of someone who could defend. Nelson Semedo, Emerson and Sergino Dest all had and have some of Alves' attacking qualities but without his brilliant powers of recovery and desire to win.

He showed his quality again at last summer's Olympics and his desire to stay fit for the next World Cup and play on until he turns 40 in May 2023 would be great sources of motivation wherever he goes.

No one in football has won more than Alves. And his longevity is almost as awe-inspiring. 

When he left Barcelona he almost joined Guardiola at Manchester City to work with the man he called 'football's Einstein'. He joined Juventus in 2017 instead and here we are almost five years later talking about where he might go next. Even a cruciate ligament tear in 2018 could not keep him down for long.

England remains one of the two big leagues he has not tried. In an interview with Sportsmail in 2016 he said of the possibility: 'I don't know when, but I would like to play there – to experience what I have seen so many times from the sofa at home. 

'The way the people experience football in England. The way there is a corner and it's cheered like it's a goal.'

He will have been hoping that Newcastle looked his way as they prepare to make their first strikes in the transfer market. Or that another club could do as Bolton Wanderers did in 2004 when they signed 36-year-old Fernando Hierro. 

An English saviour will not be necessary, however, if Barcelona are about to rescue him… and hope that he helps rescue their season.