The Clasico that could have been: Which Real Madrid and Barcelona players almost joined the other side?

It doesn’t take too much imagination to picture a very different Clasico between Real Madrid and Barcelona, ahead of the two Spanish giants doing battle at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu this Sunday.

A number of players on both sides of Spains’s most fierce rivalry could have easily ended up playing in this fixture, but for the other side had things taken a slight different path.

Which Real Madrid and Barcelona players almost joined the other Clasico team?

Pedri and the cold of Valdebebas

Pedri has spoken time and again about his trial at Real Madrid as a youth, regularly asked about it.

“It snowed and everything, so we trained less than expected,” Pedri told MARCA.??”It’s something that happened, but I’m happy where I am. When I put on the Real Madrid kit I felt something was wrong, and in the end I ended up where I wanted to be.”

Cesc’s chats with Tchouameni

Cesc Fabregas was tasked with convincing Aurelien Tchouameni to join Barcelona during their time at Monaco, where they were teammates.

“I know Tchouameni very well,” Cesc said. “I spoke with people from Barcelona about signing him.

“He’s a player for the future, but financially they couldn’t do it.”

Real Madrid’s four offers for Ferran Torres

Ferran had Real Madrid after him in his youth, during his Valencia days. But he was happy with his hometown club.

“I was young and had a lot of chances to join Real Madrid but it wasn’t the right time,” Ferran has since said.

“Three of them came when I was very young, and another offer was when I was moving up to the Valencia first team.”

Luka Modric and Johan Cruyff’s no.14

Luka Modric was known as the Cruyff of the Balkans before joining Real Madrid, due to his physical resemblance to the Dutch icon but also for wearing the no.14 on his back.

He was even gifted a Netherlands no.14 shirt that he posed with and had Barcelona interested.

Lewandowski’s choice of agent

Robert Lewandowski flirted with Real Madrid for a long time, going back to his Borussia Dortmund days. In 2018, he even made a change of agent that suggested he might arrive in the Spanish capital.

Lewandowski parted ways with Cezary Kucharski for Pini Zahavi in an attempt to get his dream move to Los Blancos, but he ended up at Bayern Munich instead.

Barcelona’s bid for Asensio

Before Real Madrid signed Marco Asensio, Barcelona thought they had his signing sealed.

Then-sporting director Andoni Zubizarreta had negotiated his transfer for 4.5 million euros, but they wanted to pay in instalments while Real Madrid were ready to pay up front, as Mallorca wanted.



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