Is this a reflection of Umar Sadiq’s remarkable rise or Barcelona’s dramatic decline?
The answer, for those wondering why on earth the La Liga giants are eyeing up a shock deal for the one-time Rangers misfit, probably lands somewhere in the middle.
When Sadiq flopped to the ground during Rangers’ Scottish League Cup semi-final defeat to Aberdeen in October 2018 – an act of blatant cheating which earned him a very public rebuke from manager Steven Gerrard – Barcelona were putting Real Madrid to the sword on the very same day, thumping their bitter rivals 5-1 while bringing an early end to Julen Lopetegui’s time in the most scalding of managerial hotseats.
In the injury-enforced absence of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez took centre stage. The Robin to Messi’s Batman certainly enjoyed his moment in the late-Spanish sun, producing a ruthless hat-trick that will go down in Blaugrana folklore.
Three years on, Messi and Suarez are long since gone.
Barcelona’s strikeforce, once considered the most fearsome in all of the land, is now made up of two strikers who failed to live up to expectations during ill-fated spells in England’s north East – Martin Braithwaite and the much-maligned Luuk de Jong.
New coach Xavi Hernandez may have no choice but to lean on De Jong and co, however, especially if Sergio Aguero is forced into a tragic early retirement.
Could Rangers misfit Umar Sadiq really join Barcelona?
According to Mundo Deportivo, however, it seems unlikely that Umar Sadiq will be joining the one-time Middlesbrough and Newcastle men in the echoing corridors of the Camp Nou.
An ambitious, second-tier Almeria outfit are refusing to sell their star striker for a penny less than the Nigerian’s £50 million release clause.
If Barcelona could not afford to register free-agent Eric Garcia, then don’t expect a club haemorrhaging cash at an alarming rate stump up £50 million for the nomadic Sadiq.
And that, it must be said, is a sentence absolutely nobody on the blue half of Glasgow would have expected to read three years ago, when Sadiq was being ushered out of Ibrox via the back door after just four goalless appearances.
That infamous dive at Hampden Park was, in truth, most memorable moment in Rangers colours.
But, with 35 goals to his name in just over a year as an Almeria player, Sadiq has clearly put that most forgettable of Rangers stints behind him.
Who knows, maybe Florian Kamberi will be joining Bayern Munich for £60 million in three years’ time?
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