Online Reporter
ONLY one Englishman has played competitive football for Barcelona in the last 100 years.
When Gary Lineker arrived at the Nou Camp in 1986, he had just won the World Cup Golden Boot and was about to finish runner-up in the Ballon d’Or.
He would go on to score a hat-trick in El Clasico, lift a European trophy and win the Copa del Rey.
Barcelona don’t tend to sign English players. And they don’t tend to sign chumps.
So the fact that Marcus Rashford is about to become only the second Englishman in the modern era to play at the spiritual home of the beautiful game is perhaps the most intriguing move of the summer.
Rashford, the member of Manchester United’s unwanted ‘bomb squad’.
Rashford, whose form has fallen off a cliff.
Rashford, whose once-saintly reputation has fallen from the clouds.
During the pandemic, Rashford earned an MBE for his campaigning work against child poverty and hunger.
Back then, he was lauded as the unofficial Leader of the Opposition.
Yet this January, Ruben Amorim claimed Rashford’s attitude was so poor that he would rather select his 63-year-old goalkeeping coach Jorge Vital as a United sub.
And now here is Rashford joining the champions of Spain, signing for the club where Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola elevated football into an art form. Earlier in the summer, Rashford had been openly touting himself for a move to Barca.
He was talking up the prospect of playing alongside Lamine Yamal, the most thrilling teenage footballer in the world.
And it all sounded like wishful thinking, like some weird shisha-pipe dream.
So news that Barca had struck a season-long loan deal with United was an extraordinary reminder that there used to be a very decent player in Rashford. After Amorim’s damning public comments, Rashford sealed a loan move to Aston Villa, where he performed pretty well, playing in a Champions League quarter-final against Paris Saint-Germain – assisting the goal which won Villa the second leg but still left them a goal shy of winning the tie.
There was enough in that Villa loan spell to prompt Thomas Tuchel to select Rashford in his first England team in March and to persuade Barca that Rashford is worth a punt, on loan with an option to buy next summer. There is a feeling that Rashford could benefit from being out of the Manchester goldfish bowl, yet playing for Barca brings extreme demands.
Before Jude Bellingham’s first Clasico appearance for Real Madrid in 2023, Lineker told me:
“We think Premier League footballers operate under a lot of pressure, and they do, but it’s nothing compared to playing for Barcelona and Real Madrid.
So Rashford hasn’t taken an easy option here. He has also taken a 15 per cent cut on his £320 000 weekly United wage. This is a man still determined to prove himself at the very top. Joining Barcelona, even on loan, is a significant step up from United – who will play no European football this coming season.
A link-up with Yamal will be interesting, off the field as well as on it – especially given that the boy wonder has only just turned 18 but has already developed a penchant for partying with Only Fans models and dwarves. Rashford’s infamous sicknote after a booze bender in Belfast – which seriously dented his relationship with Amorim’s predecessor Erik ten Hag – took place 18 months ago now.
And he is widely said to have knuckled down while at Villa. – Sun.
