Why did Verratti never play for Barça? Now he seeks a team

FC Barcelona has always shown interest in great players. Such is the case of the Italian Marco Verratti, for whom the Blaugrana entity would have been close to paying €100M in the summer market of 2017. A move that ultimately did not progress.

The Azulgrana team saw in the midfielder born in Pescara the ideal replacement for Xavi Hernández, who had left the Culé team after the 2014/15 season. Verratti had been demonstrating his playing ability at the highest level for some time, and other teams such as Juventus and Inter Milan, in addition to Barcelona, sounded out the player to find out his wishes.

According to various media, the Barcelona team initiated contacts to acquire the services of the 'little Pirlo', but in the end no agreement was reached with Paris Saint-Germain. In return, the Parisians took the opportunity to counterattack and take Neymar Jr. in that summer market.

Neymar Jr during a friendly match with PSG

All this took place after that historic comeback of Barcelona against PSG in the round of 16 of the UEFA Champions League. The first leg at the Camp Nou was 0-4 in favor of the French, while the return leg at the Parc des Princes ended 1-6 in favor of the Culés, that is, 6-5 on aggregate.

PSG prevented Marco Verratti from leaving

After taking Neymar from Barcelona, paying his release clause of €222M, the Parisians did everything possible to take away the former Napoli player's desire to wear the Blaugrana shirt. This was confessed by his former agent at the time, Donato di Campli:

"When Verratti returned to Paris they told him: 'We are going to take Neymar, we are going to renew you, but you have to fire your agent"

After achieving their goal, the French had the midfielder until September 2023, when the player moved to Al-Arabi, a team in the Qatar football league, with whom his contract has already expired. Given this, he became a free agent.

Verratti and his love for Barcelona

The midfielder has never hidden his fascination for the Catalan team; even being part of PSG, Verrati demonstrated his love for Barça in an interview with AS in February 2017. "Even though I am in a fantastic project and feel at home, anyone would play at Barça," said Marco.

Marco Verratti in a friendly match with Paris Saint-Germain

In the same way, the Pescara native highlighted at that time that Barcelona was the best team in the world. In addition to this, he pointed out that "they have three of the five best players in their forwards. Plus Iniesta. Iniesta, Messi and Neymar invent a play in a second."

The words —accompanied by more admiration than rivalry—, held by Verratti towards the Blaugrana team, would they have been considered a betrayal by Al-Khelaïfi and that is why his departure never materialized? Something difficult to know at this point.