by Tim Stannard

A Vidal day for Barcelona in summer season

This summer is getting downright bizarre.

Cristiano Ronaldo to Juventus, Gigi Buffon to PSG, Leonardo Bonucci going back to Juventus and now two footballers named A. Vidal are involved in big moves on Friday. And both involve Barcelona. The odds of that happening are exactly 94,555-1.

Let’s start with the more interesting of the two Vidal’s, Arturo, the hard-playing and very much hard-living Chilean beast of Bayern Munich’s midfield. Ex-beast, that is, with reports that the footballer has left the Bundesliga side’s training camp to hot-foot it around the corner of Europe to sign up with Barcelona for around $35 million to become yet another new recruit at the Camp Nou.

The footballer brings a reputation as very much a hardcore winner on the pitch, but also a hardcore party person off it with former Chile team boss, Jorge Sampaoli, noting that Vidal "likes to drink and doesn't control himself."

The other A. Vidal is Aleix who came to Barcelona two-seasons-ago but never really made much of an impact. The footballer is expected to complete a return to his old club, Sevilla, over the weekend. Unless there is some big A. Vidal mix up and Aleix ends up in the Bundesliga next season. Could happen.

Hear more about another big buy for Barcelona on the wonderful TRANSFER TRACKER show on our beIN SPORTS USA Facebook page at 12PM ET / 9AM PT every week day.

A billion dollars for Modric and Courtois deal comes closer

Over in the Real Madrid camp, which travels to DC on Friday ahead of an ICC clash with Juventus and Florentino Perez has poo-pooed any notion that Luka Modric leaving for Inter announcing that the Serie A side would have to find nearly…one billion dollars!...to fund the deal.

Meanwhile, the Thibaut Courtois move to Madrid took a step closer with a former coach of the Belgian network, Graham Jones, saying that the goalkeeper would definitely be on the move this summer. Even Maurizio Sarri, talking on Friday ahead of a clash against Manchester City on Sunday, said that he was unsure of what would happen. “At the moment Courtois is the goalkeeper of Chelsea. I don't know in the future,” admitted the Italian.

Tune into the XTRA at 7PM ET / 4PM PT for the latest news from both Real Madrid and Barcelona with our reporters on site during their respective USA tours.

Neymar’s PSG return on Saturday becomes a possibility

Over the other side of the world in China – unless you happen to be living there and reading this – and PSG boss Thomas Tuchel has been speaking ahead of the club’s Champions Trophy clash against Monaco on Saturday in Shenzhen.

The big question is whether Neymar will be featuring the clash, having only joined up with the team on Wednesday – the answer was a positive ‘maybe’ with the German hinting that “we are not going to take risks to make (the Brazilians) play. We will pay close attention to those that are ready.”

Friday also marks one year to the day that Neymar signed for PSG in the first genuinely jaw-dropping transfer in recent years and a move that still has repercussions a year later: especially for Barcelona.

You can catch PSG v Monaco in the Trophee des Champions live on beIN SPORTS CONNECT and beIN SPORTS ESPANYOL live at 7:55AM ET / 4:55AM PT.

Championship returns with WBA looking for EPL bounce back

The European season sort of officially gets underway on Friday with the return of the English Championship which kicks off with Reading taking on Derby County.

As ever, the fight to win the three promotion spots over 46 games will be frenetic with the relegated trio – WBA, Swansea City and Stoke City – looking to bounce back straight away and embrace the financial comfort blanket of the EPL. Look at WBA to carry on the good momentum from the end of last season under Darren Moore.

Middlesbrough, Aston Villa and Derby County should all be there or thereabouts at the top but also keep an eye out on Leeds United with this very fallen giant now being lead by another fallen giant, Marcelo Bielsa. This is going to be interesting to say the least.

Sadly, Sports Burst’s personal favorite, Ipswich Town, is set for a relegation battle.

On Saturday, the Scottish league season gets underway, where Dundee look good to seal the deal at the top. Not really. It’s Celtic.

WHAT IS SPORTS BURST?

The life philosophy of Sports Burst is that if you are not upsetting someone, then you are not trying hard enough. Sports Burst is a daily trawl and troll through the morning's sports news to bring you fact-nuggets to make you both smile and swear. Hopefully at the same time.