Barcelona are one of the world’s biggest football clubs and one that is known by pretty much everybody that has even the smallest of grasps about the sport.
For footballers, it can be one of the greatest of honours to be able to get a move to the Nou Camp or even be linked with one such possibility, however it might not always be the best option to take or be the wisest of things to do…
Arguably, just because of a huge name has come calling for your services, it might be best to review before proceeding on with things and before ultimately going on to make a potentially disastrous mistake. For example, before joining an online casino, you would be expected to conduct casino reviews to ensure you are getting the best offers, wouldn’t you?
Sometimes, things just do not work out and it is pretty much safe to say, that for these five individuals, things simply did not go to plan…
1/ Zlatan Ibrahimovic
With the success that Pep Guardiola has had in management since retiring, you would assume that players would love the opportunity to join him and almost guarantee to add to their trophy cabinet.
However, Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Mr Personality, personified) took aim with the Spanish legend and admitted that his move to Barcelona had been doomed from the start as the Swede revealed he was prepared to go against the waves and even went on to make life hard at the Nou Camp by purposely hitting out against the manager’s tactics – the Champions League semi-final against Inter Milan where he ran just 400ms more that goalkeeper Victor Valdes highlights that point.
2/ Geovanni
2001 saw the arrival of Geovanni – a world-class Brazilian attacker, supposedly? Having arrived for a mammoth fee of around $18million at the time from Cruzeiro, the South American was meant to bring the famous flair and creativity to the Nou Camp but it seems he left it all in Brazil before boarding the plane. Maybe he packed the wrong football boots?
3/ Philippe Christanval
2001 was a bad year for signings in Catalonia as Philippe Christanval did not fair much better than the aforementioned Geovanni, either.
The former France international defender may have been built as a central defender would have been imagined, however he left a lot to be desired with his poor positional sense and inconsistency. €17million could have been better spent on someone else, one would feel.
4/ Philippe Coutinho
Moving along to the modern-day and, well, things have not quite improved for Barcelona when it comes down to the players that they have acquired over the years to become football’s ultimate club.
Shelling out £142million to bring Philippe Coutinho from Anfield to the Nou Camp, a lot would have been expected from this Brazilian however he appeared to struggle to grace the turf with the same grace he managed at Liverpool and Inter Milan prior to that move.
Just another Geovanni?
5/ Ousmane Dembele
Barcelona, stop splashing out nine-figure fees on wingers in the hope you get one that can do the business! Ousmane Dembele was another failed experiment that has failed to yield the right results in the north-eastern part of Spain.
The Catalans splashed out a transfer fee worth around £135.5million for the former Borussia Dortmund attacker and appear to have spent almost that amount of money on his medical bills – he’s had nine different injuries that have totalled in him missing 97 games over three seasons (TransferMarkt).
To make matters worse, Barcelona are looking to offload their flop but are believed to be ready to take a massive financial hit on him to try and get rid of him.
It will be interesting to see if they have learnt from these mistakes, but a bizarre deal for Martin Braithwaite does not feel us with confidence…
