After a dismal finish to the 2016–17 campaign, in which they were defeated by Juventus in the Champions League and Real Madrid in the league, Barcelona hoped to improve their play in the middle of the field by acquiring new players during the summer transfer window of 2017.

Andres Iniesta was playing out the final months of his career, while Ivan Rakitic and Sergio Busquets were grossly underachieving.

During Barcelona’s game against Paris Saint-Germain, in which they were defeated 4-0, they kept a close eye on Marco Verratti, who they have designated as their key transfer target. It was rumored that the player was interested in joining as well.

Unfortuitously for them, the French club did not allow the player to depart and instead ended up acquiring Neymar from the Catalan club by activating his release clause for 222 million euros. Neymar’s new contract will start in 2018.

After six years have passed, the Verratti incident has become one of the most significant ‘what-ifs’ in the recent history of Barcelona. The Italian would have been a smooth replacement for Busquets and breathed new life into the blaugrana midfield if he had been selected.

Verratti, who is now 30 years old, left in the summer to sign a 45 million euro contract with Al-Arabi. When asked in an interview with Alkass TV Sports which team he dreamed of playing for, the former PSG midfielder responded, “Barcelona.” This answer came as no surprise.

“They were a team whose playing style I enjoyed watching them play very much.”

However, that was not the last time he talked about Barcelona. He continued to do so.

Verratti went on to say that Andres Iniesta was the best central midfielder of all time and that Barcelona was his favorite team.

In addition, he favored Lionel Messi over Cristiano Ronaldo, stating that the Argentine player was “the best in history.”.

Verratti’s answer to the question regarding the worst match he played for PSG in his whole 11-year career was that the match in which Barcelona defeated the Parisian club by a score of 6-1 was the worst.