In the summer of 2010 he moved to Catalonia. As Sports Director, under the presidency of Sandro Rosell, he was responsible for some stratospheric Blaugrana squads. Zubizarreta signed 17 stars, including Adriano, Mascherano, David Silva, Milito, Fàbregas, Neymar, Luis Suárez, Ter Stegen, Jordi Alba, Thiago Alcântara, Abidal, Ibrahimovic or Alexis Sánchez, his biggest sale in 1648 days as director of the Barca.
The deal to buy Neymar’s pass was officially the biggest. In the club’s version, it cost 57 million euros, but in the version of the Spanish Court that investigated the transfer, it was 74. A scandal that time eased and that would lead to a record haul of 222 million when the Brazilian moved to PSG, that which is the biggest transfer in history and which also ends up being a victory for Zubizarreta.
The trophies won by the Catalan team silenced many criticisms due to the huge expenditure on signings, in the order of 400 million euros, much more than the value recorded with 72M€ (!) in departures, many of them surplus members of the squad and young people leaving La Masia.
In its first year (2010-11) it won the Championship, the Super Cup, the Champions League and the Club World Cup and lost the final of the Copa del Rey. In the 2011-12 season it came in 2nd place in the Championship, but won the Super Cup, the Copa del Rey, the European Super Cup and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League… which they repeated the following season, which ended with winning the Championship. The least successful season was 2013-14, with a Super Cup.
In January 2015, he left the Catalan team, fired, after FIFA banned the club from signing players until January 2016. Despite leaving halfway through, the 2014-15 season would end with winning the Champions League, the Club World Cup. , the Championship and the King’s Cup. The total was 14 trophies.
Tags: Stability identity trophies negative player balance speak Zubizarreta
