Barcelona and Manchester United are two of the most widely known and grandest institutions the football world has to offer.
It was at the home of Barça where United were crowned European champions for the second time in 1999, but they were denied a fourth European Cup/Champions League crown by the Blaugrana themselves on two occasions.
Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering outfit claimed a 2–0 victory in the Rome-held 2009 final before they produced one of the finest performances of modern times in the showpiece event two years later.
Despite those links, rarely has business been conducted between the pair. Before Marcus Rashford completed his season-long loan, with option to buy, there had been just two instances of Manchester United players joining Barcelona.
Here’s a reminder of who those two were, and how they fared in Catalonia.
Welsh striker Hughes became just the second British player to don Blaugrana colours since 1923, with Scotsman Steve Archibald joining the Spanish giants two years before Hughes in 1984.
The home-grown Manchester United star arrived during the same summer as Gary Lineker after the 1986 World Cup, with English manager Terry Venables overseeing a mini Anglo-revolution at Camp Nou.
Hughes had broken out in Manchester as a teenager, spending the first six years of his senior career at Old Trafford before he was forced to move to Barcelona amid a contract dispute with the Red Devils.
“I didn’t have that confidence to say ‘I’m not going’ and it just kept going and I found myself on a plane flying to Barcelona,” Hughes later admitted, suggesting that he never wanted to leave United. While Archibald and Lineker both enjoyed immediate success in Spain, Hughes struggled to adapt both on and off the pitch.
The Welshman scored just four times in his one and only La Liga season, eventually returning to Manchester United in 1988 following a loan spell at Bayern Munich. Hughes would later score a match-winning brace for the Red Devils against his former club in the 1991 European Cup Winners’ Cup final.
Unlike Hughes, Piqué was very familiar with the Barcelona ‘entorno’ upon his arrival in 2008. The defender was schooled at La Masia as a holding midfielder before signing for Manchester United as a 17-year-old in 2004.
The Spaniard played just 12 times in the Premier League during his four years in Manchester, returning to Catalonia off the back of winning the Champions League in 2007–08.
“I am very happy to be back, I didn’t think I would be here again, but this is very good for me,” Piqué said after re-joining Barça. While he struggled to emerge ahead of Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidić at United, Piqué became a regular under Guardiola back home almost immediately. He appeared 45 times in all competitions for the sextuple-winning side in 2008–09, and would eventually evolve into one of the world’s best central defenders throughout the 2010s.
Piqué remained at Barcelona until 2022, racking up 616 appearances (fifth-most in Barça history) and claiming over 30 major honours. He was named in UEFA’s Team of the Year five times and the FIFPro World XI four times. Piqué retired as one of the finest defenders of his generation.
