13 top stars who have massively failed to deliver for Barcelona since 2010
As one of the biggest clubs in the world, Barcelona have extremely high standards - and even some of the best players in the world can struggle to live up to them.
Barcelona have won La Liga 25 times, the Copa del Rey 30 times and the Champions League five times in their history, but their success since Pep Guardiola took charge of the first team in 2008 is something else entirely.
This means that many top players moved to Camp Nou around this time and failed to really establish themselves. Here are some of the more notable examples.
Philippe CoutinhoThe most hyped of the lot? Very probably. The most expensive? Absolutely. Barca paid Liverpool £121.5million for the Brazilian in January 2018.
To be fair, Coutinho had been brilliant under Jurgen Klopp, creating chances and scoring long-range curlers for fun. But he could never fit into Barca's 4-3-3 - neither was he a natural replacement for Andres Iniesta in midfield nor the wide man the Blaugrana needed to fill in Neymar's shoes.
It says something that the most remarkable thing he did at the Camp Nou was to score two goals in the Champions League quarter-finals… for Bayern Munich in an 8-2 thrashing against the club he was loaned to.
Antoine GriezmannAnother of Barcelona's mega-money signings of the late 2010s, Griezmann arrived for £108m in the summer of 2019 and proved just as ill-suited to Barcelona's famed path as Coutinho.
Naturally a second striker, he struggled to fit in as a center forward or right winger in the 4-3-3.
After 22 league goals in his two full seasons at the club, Griezmann has been sent back to his former club Atletico on loan. Diego Simeone started using it in short bursts of 30 minutes to avoid paying Barca an extra fee. Crafty.André Gomes
Barcelona fought off competition from Real Madrid to sign Gomes from Valencia in 2016 for an initial fee of €35m.
With a further €20m in possible add-ons included in the deal, Gomes was Barca's star signing this summer, but just two years later he was loaned out to Everton for the season.
p>That deal was made permanent in 2019. But in his third season on Merseyside he has struggled to regain his form and fitness and is now spending the 2022-23 season at Lille.
Zlatan IbrahimovicThe Swede's planet-sized ego never fit in at Barcelona, and he left after just one season after falling out with Pep Guardiola.
He scored a reasonable 22 goals in 46 appearances, including a winner against Real Madrid, and would no doubt claim he conquered La Liga, but he was never going to last at the club.
>"The whole gang - they were like school children." he wrote in his autobiography.
"The best footballers in the world were standing there with their heads down, and I didn't understand a thing. It was ridiculous."
Zlatan won titles with Milan and PSG, becoming the French club's all-time top scorer, before seeing spells at Manchester United and LA Galaxy. Now 41, he won another league title with Milan last season.
Barcelona replaced him with David Villa, who will play a pivotal role in winning the Champions League in 2011.
READ: Ranking 12 of Zlatan Ibrahimovic's best goals in order of ridiculousness
Alex VidalOne of many Monchi signings for Sevilla to sell at huge profit to Barcelona, it's fair to say Vidal hasn't performed as well as Dani Alves, Rakitic and Seydou Keita before him.
>The former winger, converted to right-back, was very impressive under Unai Emery when Sevilla won the Europa League in 2015, but he never quite replicated that form for Barcelona, and like Turan, the truncated start was not. set the right tone.
In fact, Sergi Roberto, originally a central midfielder, beat him in t...
As one of the biggest clubs in the world, Barcelona have extremely high standards - and even some of the best players in the world can struggle to live up to them.
Barcelona have won La Liga 25 times, the Copa del Rey 30 times and the Champions League five times in their history, but their success since Pep Guardiola took charge of the first team in 2008 is something else entirely.
This means that many top players moved to Camp Nou around this time and failed to really establish themselves. Here are some of the more notable examples.
Philippe CoutinhoThe most hyped of the lot? Very probably. The most expensive? Absolutely. Barca paid Liverpool £121.5million for the Brazilian in January 2018.
To be fair, Coutinho had been brilliant under Jurgen Klopp, creating chances and scoring long-range curlers for fun. But he could never fit into Barca's 4-3-3 - neither was he a natural replacement for Andres Iniesta in midfield nor the wide man the Blaugrana needed to fill in Neymar's shoes.
It says something that the most remarkable thing he did at the Camp Nou was to score two goals in the Champions League quarter-finals… for Bayern Munich in an 8-2 thrashing against the club he was loaned to.
Antoine GriezmannAnother of Barcelona's mega-money signings of the late 2010s, Griezmann arrived for £108m in the summer of 2019 and proved just as ill-suited to Barcelona's famed path as Coutinho.
Naturally a second striker, he struggled to fit in as a center forward or right winger in the 4-3-3.
After 22 league goals in his two full seasons at the club, Griezmann has been sent back to his former club Atletico on loan. Diego Simeone started using it in short bursts of 30 minutes to avoid paying Barca an extra fee. Crafty.André Gomes
Barcelona fought off competition from Real Madrid to sign Gomes from Valencia in 2016 for an initial fee of €35m.
With a further €20m in possible add-ons included in the deal, Gomes was Barca's star signing this summer, but just two years later he was loaned out to Everton for the season.
p>That deal was made permanent in 2019. But in his third season on Merseyside he has struggled to regain his form and fitness and is now spending the 2022-23 season at Lille.
Zlatan IbrahimovicThe Swede's planet-sized ego never fit in at Barcelona, and he left after just one season after falling out with Pep Guardiola.
He scored a reasonable 22 goals in 46 appearances, including a winner against Real Madrid, and would no doubt claim he conquered La Liga, but he was never going to last at the club.
>"The whole gang - they were like school children." he wrote in his autobiography.
"The best footballers in the world were standing there with their heads down, and I didn't understand a thing. It was ridiculous."
Zlatan won titles with Milan and PSG, becoming the French club's all-time top scorer, before seeing spells at Manchester United and LA Galaxy. Now 41, he won another league title with Milan last season.
Barcelona replaced him with David Villa, who will play a pivotal role in winning the Champions League in 2011.
READ: Ranking 12 of Zlatan Ibrahimovic's best goals in order of ridiculousness
Alex VidalOne of many Monchi signings for Sevilla to sell at huge profit to Barcelona, it's fair to say Vidal hasn't performed as well as Dani Alves, Rakitic and Seydou Keita before him.
>The former winger, converted to right-back, was very impressive under Unai Emery when Sevilla won the Europa League in 2015, but he never quite replicated that form for Barcelona, and like Turan, the truncated start was not. set the right tone.
In fact, Sergi Roberto, originally a central midfielder, beat him in t...
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