The new Messi is gone, Manchester City steals from FC Barcelona

Although Claudio Echeverri's dream is to play for Barcelona, the current River Plate player will be part of Manchester City starting in December 2024. At the time, the 'Diablito' commented that he would love to play for the Blaugrana institution , this added to the interest of this institution, it seemed that its future was more than decided.

But due to financial issues on the part of the Culé club, negotiations with River went downhill and City took the opportunity to secure the one they also nickname the 'next Messi'. In this way, Echeverri joined that group of stars who did not end up making it to the Spanish team.

One of the great soccer gems who was able to wear the Barcelona shirt was Kylian Mbappé. When the World Champion was at Monaco in 2017, he was scouted by Barca; However, they preferred to hire Dembélé because he fit better into the system.

Another similar case happened with Erling Haaland, in 2019 (at Salbzurg) they were not clear that the forward did not have the profile to be part of the club, so they hired Martin Braithwaite. In 2022 it seemed that the Blaugrana club could close the Norwegian forward, but after the death of Mino Raiola (the forward's representative), the negotiations became complicated and they decided to step aside due to the financial demands of the footballer's father.

In this last decade, the Culés had already lost a jewel from River Plate such as Julián Álvarez. Although 'La Araña' was offered at the time to the Spanish team, they never opted to hire him and preferred to pay 55 million euros for Ferran Torres, from Manchester City, the team that ended up signing Julián.

The most recent case

The most recent case had been Arda Güler, a Turkish talent who began to attract the attention of several clubs due to his updates with his national team and Fenerbahçe. The 18-year-old midfielder was in the eye of the storm because he was in the sights of Barcelona and Real Madrid, but at the end of the day he opted for the merengue team.