FC BARCELONA SIGNINGS 2025
Barça forces Ter Stegen to leave: What will his future be?
Published:18/06/2025 - 20:32h
Updated:18/06/2025 - 20:32h
The signing of Joan García forces Ter Stegen to find a team for 25/26. However, Barça must help the German find a satisfactory exit for all parties
Marc-André ter Stegen seems to have his days numbered at FC Barcelona. The signing of Joan García marks the beginning of a new era in the Barça goal, just as it happened after the German's signing in 2014 and the subsequent departure of Víctor Valdés.
However, taking into account the precedent of the farewell of the player from L'Hospitalet, the Barça team and the German goalkeeper are obliged to negotiate a cordial exit, worthy of the '1's career in his eleven seasons with the first team.
Ter Stegen, currently the first Barça captain, has made 422 official appearances and won 19 titles between 2014 and 2025, including a Champions League in his first season. In total, he has conceded 416 goals (0.98 per game), being undisputed in the Catalan goal since 2016.
Although the 33-year-old goalkeeper sees himself in a position to maintain his starting position, the club is betting on the youth and projection of Joan García, the best goalkeeper in the last League.
However, Marc-André has a contract until 2028 and a salary of almost 7 million net per year, so his departure will not be easy to negotiate while the player insists on staying to fight for the starting position. An option that, after the imminent renewal of Wojciech Szczesny, makes no sense for Hansi Flick's plans.
The three paths that Barça is considering to get rid of Ter Stegen
And, with the Pole as Joan García's substitute, thinking of Ter Stegen occupying a residual role is unfeasible both for the club's finances and for the German's sporting future, even more so in a season prior to a World Cup.
In that sense, several clubs are attentive to his future, waiting to know if Barça accepts a loan or, finally, the player from Mönchengladbach rescinds his link with the club.
This departure is quite complex, since it would force Barcelona to pay the '1' a full year's salary as amortization. The negotiation of a loan is not easy either, since the 'culés' would only be willing to assume a smaller percentage of the goalkeeper's emoluments.
In the case of a transfer, Barça would accept an amount close to 10 'kilos', as long as Marc-André gives the 'Ok'. AC Milan and Galatasaray are, for the moment, the teams most interested in the Barça goalkeeper, but none of these offers convince the player.
Ter Stegen knows he is sentenced by Flick: his departure is imminent
Beyond the initial distancing between the parties, the Barça board and Ter Stegen must meet soon to discuss the terms of his departure. The team will return to training on July 13. By then, the most sensible thing is to have already resolved the German's farewell, as Hansi Flick only has Szczesny and García, in addition to Diego Kochen (third goalkeeper) for the pre-season.
The coach's sentence to the player from Mönchengladbach, according to rumors leaked by the Catalan press, came before the Champions League semi-finals against Inter Milan. Marc-André received medical discharge just before and wanted to pressure the coaching staff to return him to the starting XI against the 'nerazzurri'.
Flick, however, kept Szczesny in goal, relegating the '1' to two League games (Valladolid and Villarreal). Since then, the goalkeeper and the coach broke relations and proof of this was the captain's distant attitude during the celebrations for winning LaLiga. After the end of the season, the club decided to go for Joan García, paying the 25 M€ of his clause to Espanyol.
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