10 Players Who Probably Regret Joining Barcelona
7. Dmytro Chygrynskiy
Its not often that a club pays effectively £10 million for a season-long loan for a player, but in August 2009, the Barcelona chiefs might as well have. Champions of Europe, every man and his dog could see that there were still chinks in the armour that could be exploited namely the fact that the club had to employ Yaya Toure as a makeshift centre-half for the Champions League final.
Quoted £25 million for the ball-playing Ukrainian centre-back, the Barcelona chiefs reluctantly stumped up the hefty price tag, and the long-haired marshal signed a five year contract. Having become the first Ukrainian footballer to ever pull on the famous Catalan strip, Chygrynskiy was eager to impose himself on the La Liga champions. However, throughout the season, he displayed traits of player worth one-fifth of his price tag. He looked lightweight, clumsy and slow, as he struggled for form under the Nou Camp spotlight.
''When I signed for Barca, I didnt think I was going to play without any problems immediately, but nor did I know it was going to be so hard. Here theres more pressure from people and from the media and the style of play is also very different to Ukraine. One thing is desire, another is reality. Dmytro Chyrgynskiy, 2010.
Registering just 12 games in the league, the 23 year old was signing another five year contract the next summer at the club he had just walked out on. Bought back at a cut-price fee of £15 million, Shakhtar Donetsk will surely have given a pay rise to whoever managed to negotiate the entire transfer dealing. For Chyrgynskiy, however, it was a simple case of signing for too gargantuan-sized a club. The ageing, yet legendary, Carlos Puyol had huge shoes to fill, and the Ukrainian centre-half was still lumbering around in his size eights.