Icardi and the break with Barça

“Icardi just wanted to go to Barça. It was his decision. It was the club he had always loved”Abian Morano Santana, Mauro's former agent, said in 2018 to 'ESPN'. The striker had to leave his native country because of the economic crisis in Argentina and landed in the Canary Islands. He enlisted in the Vecindario and there he became such a voracious scorer that his dream came true in February 2008. At the age of 15, Icardi arrived at Barcelona.

In the lower categories he showed that scoring nose that made him score about 100 goals per season for the island team and their numbers with youth B (19 goals) and A (17), as they well remember from 'Footmercato', presaged a future linked to the elders. However, the style of Pep Guardiola closed the doors, as he began to bet on the figure of the false nine, contrary to the characteristics of Rosario.

The Guardiola style closed the door

“He had serious problems at Barcelona,” Santana recalled in the aforementioned interview. “The '9' was not an important player. Leo Messi was already in the team when Guardiola arrived and the role of the center forward changed completely. There were no spaces for Mauro. Look what happened with Villa, Ibrahimovic and even Henry. They all evolved to a position that was not theirs, “he continued. And the fact is that, by all, the transversality of the Barça style is known, since the lower categories they copy the technical script for the elders so that the transition is natural. Here came the beginning of the end of Mauro's adventure in Barcelona.

“You have to leave Barcelona”, his then agent told him, explaining the reason for his departure as follows: “He trusted me and his parents. He was the top scorer in the categories in which he played, but in his third year it was clear that you had to change of scene. Óscar García was the coach (of the subsidiary) and began to play with a false nine, with Rafinha in position. There I asked the club to let him out “. This is how Icardi's goodbye was conceived. In January 2011 he would leave on loan to Sampdoria to play in their youth team and that same summer the Italian team would incorporate him permanently. 300,000, which in just two seasons turned into 13 million, the amount that Inter Milan paid to take over the striker.

Rise to stardom and threaten for revenge

At Giuseppe Meazza he definitely became a global star (111 goals in 188 games in Serie A), but a series of disagreements with the club led him to Paris in 2019. First transferred, and finally transferred, when the Parisians executed the purchase option of 50 million euros included in the loan agreement. Now, without Neymar, he appears at the Camp Nou, where he could never triumph, as one of the greatest threats of PSG, along with Mbappé, the undisputed leader, and Di María.

He has never managed to beat Barça. They shared a group with Inter in the 2018-19 Champions League. In the first leg in Barcelona, ​​the locals triumphed (2-0). While in the return, although he scored, his goal only served to scratch a point (1-1). You will surely experience this tie with a special aroma. Revenge? After, a priori, 180 minutes we will know the answer. At 9:00 p.m. the opening beep sounds …