5 fantasisti who failed at Barcelona

Jari Litmanen: 1999-2001

Number 10 Finland
Appearances: 32 / Goals: 4

Once again timing here seemed to prove the key factor in the industrious and quick-witted playmaker’s failure to light up the Camp Nou, just as Hagi and Prosinecki had found before him.

Brought to Barcelona by his former Ajax coach Louis van Gaal during the difficult period of what proved to be the final season of his first stint in charge of the club, instead of perhaps finding an ally in his coach, Litmanen found an increasingly irritable tactician who years later would seem to suggest that the Fin was his biggest disappointment:

“Players count for nothing, the team is everything. I set more store by a player’s character than by his on-field qualities, and particularly whether he is willing to give everything to the cause. There are some incredibly talented players who haven’t got the character or the personality to suit my methods. Litmanen, for example, was a different player at Barca than he was at Ajax. You have to adapt to a new culture when you move to a different club, and not every player is able to do that.”

Incredibly Litmanen was van Gaal’s eighth Ajax signing at Barcelona – scathingly dubbed Barcajax – and this perceived Dutchification of the Catalan’s was becoming increasingly irritating to the local fans and press – particularly once the team stopped winning. Years of hard pressing as a quite unorthodox Number 10 under van Gaal at Ajax had seemingly taken its toll on Litmanen’s already delicate and ageing body too, as the Fin continued to suffer multiple injuries whilst in Spain, leading one British newspaper to somewhat unfavourably compare him with the Pope of that time, John Paul II, due to “making few appearances and looking more frail each time.”

Van Gaal was sacked at the end of a trophyless season but Litmanen was frozen out further; losing his number 10 shirt to Rivaldo that summer and never playing a single game for Barcelona again as he was offloaded to Liverpool, where he endured an equally frustrating time.

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