As one of the world’s foremost superclubs, it’s not very often you get a rubbish player turning out for Barcelona.
By rubbish, we’re not talking players that proved to be world-class elsewhere but never quite lived up to a mammoth price tag, like Philippe Coutinho.
We’re talking really, really rubbish – albeit with the usual caveat that’s by top-level professional standards, namely still about a hundred times better than the best player you’ve ever played five-a-side with.
Sometimes not being good enough can have its own endearing quality all in itself. Here are six players who were rubbish at Barcelona but we couldn’t help but love them for it.
Jose Manuel Pinto
The experienced goalkeeper, who always looked more like a professional wrestler than a footballer, joined the club in the summer of 2008 – when Pep Guardiola joined and their golden age began.
Pinto always appeared satisfied to play second fiddle to Victor Valdes and by all accounts was a popular figure in the dressing room, especially close with Lionel Messi.
But he’d cause heart-attacks when rotated in or deputising on the rare occasions Valdes got injured. In particular, his presence between the sticks proved costly in the run-in as Barcelona went trophyless in 2013-14.
Despite being on the periphery, he always seemed up for a scrap. He was once banned for whistling to distract an opposition attacker and was sent off against Madrid despite not playing. We salute him for that shithousery.
Douglas
The Brazilian full-back’s expression always seemed to paint a picture of ‘I’m just happy to be here’ and fair play – we’d likely be exactly the same if training with Lionel Messi and Neymar was our day job.
He spent five years on Barcelona’s books but only made three La Liga appearances amid various loans away. Douglas was invariably savaged for looking out of his depth in his rare forays onto the pitch.
“In Barcelona I had some tough times with injuries,” Douglas later recalled in an interview with El Comercio. “I’d come home crying every day.”
Aw. Mostly we just want to give him a hug.
Alex Song
Song definitely wasn’t the worst player in the world. He was excellent at Arsenal and was part of Barcelona’s 100-point 2012-13 La Liga-winning squad.
But he was distinctly crap during his short stint in Spain and never looked like staking a claim for regular starts. We can barely remember anything he did on the pitch for the club, but we’ll always have…
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