An old acquaintance of FC Barcelona dreams again of returning to the European elite at the age of 36. This is Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who recently terminated his contract with the Saudi club Al-Qadsiah to try to get a contract as a free agent in a 'top' league.
'Auba' left Marseille last summer to go to the team managed by Míchel. There, he scored 21 goals and provided 3 assists in 36 matches, but decided to leave despite having one more year of contract. The Gabonese earned around 20 million euros net during his time in Arabia and, now, he is willing to minimize his income in order to return to one of the five major leagues.
In that sense, the latest information points to the desire of the experienced striker to knock on the door of one of his former teams. Perhaps Barça or Marseille itself, with the latter being a much more viable alternative.
Would Aubameyang have a place in Flick's Barça?
In France, Aubameyang scored 31 goals and provided 11 assists in 51 official matches with Olympique. In addition, he left money in the bank, just as he did during his time with the Blaugrana team.
Pierre-Emerick arrived at Camp Nou in the winter of 2022, after terminating his contract with Arsenal, and was the team's top scorer in his only semester as a 'culé'. The Gabonese scored 13 goals in 24 matches in which he also provided an assist.
Although Xavi Hernández counted on him for the 22/23 season, he finally left that summer to Chelsea, leaving 12 'kilos' in the coffers of a Barça in need of income to balance the books after a market where Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha and Jules Koundé arrived.
This year, the Blaugrana scenario with 'Fair Play' is still complex, but the club's sporting situation is much more positive. Hansi Flick's team is coming off an almost perfect season and, with the signing of Marcus Rashford, the forward line seems closed for the 25726 season.
Although he is a goalscorer of a thousand battles, 'Auba' clearly would not have a place in the current 'culé' squad. For the moment, Rashford, along with Ferran Torres and Roony Bardghji, are the alternative trident of a team that was already able to score 173 goals the previous year.
Marseille, ready to recover Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
On the contrary, Marseille would be delighted to recover the player from Laval. Roberto De Zerbi's team were runners-up in Ligue 1 and hope to be up to the task in the 25/26 season to advance, at least, to the round of 16 in the UEFA Champions League.
Beyond the age factor, Aubameyang still proves to have enough quality and energy to be a valuable revulsive in a team like the French one, which last season was the second highest scoring team in its league with 74, but far from the records reached by Paris Saint-Germain (92 goals in favor, with 19 points more).
Will the African striker be able to return to Europe? For the moment, he has 344 goals spread across the nine clubs with which he had the opportunity to play, with Borussia Dortmund (141 goals) being where he showed his best version, followed by Arsenal (92), where he even became captain.