5 players whose dream Barcelona transfer quickly became a nightmare
Playing for Barcelona is the scenario we all dream of growing up as football fans no matter where you’re from, but the reality isn’t always as perfect.
For as historic a club as Barcelona is, they’re far from perfect and even if a footballer plays themselves into a dream move to the iconic club, there are no guarantees of success with La Blaugrana – certainly not anymore.
With Nico Williams the latest player linked with a move to Camp Nou, we’ve taken a look at five examples of players whose dream transfer quickly became a nightmare.
Philippe Coutinho
Evolving into arguably the best player in the Premier League at the time and one of the most relentless in Europe, there was little Liverpool could do when Barcelona came circling for Coutinho in the summer of 2017.
They managed to keep hold of him that summer, but ultimately ended up selling the Brazilian playmaker halfway through the 2017-18 campaign when Barcelona tabled an initial £105million, rising to £142million with add-ons.
The move was sealed and Coutinho got the dream transfer he’d been pushing for. A thigh injury discovered in his medical perhaps should’ve been the warning of a bad omen, but a swift recovery and a fast start papered over cracks.
He struggled for form in the 2018-19 campaign, though, leading to criticism from fans, and was shipped out on loan to Bayern Munich in 2019-20, knocking his parent club out of the Champions League on the way to winning a treble.
He left permanently for Aston Villa in 2022, having made just over 100 appearances for Barcelona, scoring 25 goals.
Antoine Griezmann
After very nearly joining Manchester United in 2017 but performing a U-turn and staying loyal to Atletico Madrid, Griezmann undid that loyalty in the summer of 2019 when he signed for Barcelona.
The French playmaker’s big move seemingly came a few years too late, however, with him never really kicking on for the Catalan giants and leaving to return to Atleti after just two years.
His firing rate was better than Coutinho’s, scoring 10 more goals in more or less the same amount of games, but Griezmann never loved Barca and they never loved him, proving largely useless in a team that still had Lionel Messi pulling the strings.
He has since admitted that the move was a ‘mistake’ and has worked tirelessly since returning to Atletico on a permanent deal to become their starman once again, finishing the 2023-24 campaign with 16 goals and six assists from 33 La Liga games.
Ousmane Dembele
After somehow selling Neymar for a world record £200million in the summer of 2017, Barcelona had an unfathomable amount of cash to hand and a huge hole to fill in their forward line, which resulted in the signing of Dembele from Borussia Dortmund for £135million.
The Frenchman joined off the back of an outstanding campaign with the German side, but was still only 20 and had completed just one season in Dortmund.
Injuries dominated his first season with Barcelona and that would become a recurring theme throughout his stay, with his spellbinding best performances often disrupted by an injury which would then knock him out of form.
Dembele enjoyed a strong 2018-19 campaign as Barcelona won La Liga, but largely failed to leave his mark on the club and left for Paris Saint-Germain in 2023 – ironically replacing Neymar again – where again inconsistency has been the dominant theme.
Far from the worst, but far from the dream.
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Arda Turan
A spell so underwhelming that people forget it happened, Turan was widely considered one of the best footballers in Europe before his move to Barcelona, making the 2014 UEFA Team of the Year while at Atletico Madrid and very much earning a dream transfer after four brilliant years in Madrid.
La Blaurgana signed Turan in the summer of 2015, although he had to wait until the following January to make his debut due to a transfer ban, taking the number seven shirt.
The delayed start proved troublesome, but he bounced back in 2016-17 with hat-tricks against Borussia Monchengladbach and Hercules.
That was about as good as it got, though, before injuries and managerial changes again threw the Turkish playmaker out of sync.
He didn’t play a single minute under Ernesto Valverde, struggled for fitness and ended up back in Turkey on loan, with his Barcelona career largely a failure – and a surprise one at that.
Thankfully, he’s bounced back and is now embarking on what looks to be a promising career in management.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Barcelona have conducted countless pieces of bad business in recent years, but in terms of deals that still sting, Ibrahimovic comes to mind considering just how good things could’ve been.
After three years in Italy with Inter, Ibrahimovic signed out as the Serie A top scorer and a three-timer Scudetto winner to sign for Barcelona, who paid £40million and Samuel Eto’o to bring the Swedish forward to the club.
Ibrahimovic finished his first season with a respectable 21 goals and 13 assists in all competitions, but had already begun to butt heads with Pep Guardiola and infamously confronted his manager in the dressing room after they were knocked out of the Champions League semi-final by – you guessed it – Inter.
Things never recovered after that and when Guardiola had had enough of changing his side to accommodate Ibrahimovic, he instead began to play Ibrahimovic wide to accommodate Lionel Messi as the centre forward.
Naturally, Ibra wasn’t having it and was back in Italy by the summer of 2010 with AC Milan.