The Senegalese side has officially become, with his transfer to HNK Gorica in his last year of contract, in the umpteenth failed bet of Barça for the right side
The most bitter side of football has been dealt with by a defender who, at 23 years old, will have to continue his path to redemption in Croatia and in a competition far removed from the elite and the media spotlight
Moussa Wague With his loan to HNK Gorica in the last year of his contract, he has officially become Barça’s umpteenth failed bet for the right-back. The paths of the Blaugrana club and the Senegalese footballer have definitively separated after four tremendously marked years due to a serious knee injury that frustrated the “dream & rdquor; of the Bignona player. It has not been. The bitter side of football has been dealt with by a defender who, at 23 years old, will have to continue his path to redemption in Croatia and in a competition far removed from the elite and the media spotlight.
Wagué arrived at Barça after the Russia World Cup. He took advantage of the 2018 World Cup showcase, in which he played all three group stage matches with the senior Senegalese team and scored a goal, to show that, despite his youth, he was ready to leave the Belgian KAS Eupen and start his journey in Europe. The culé entity paid five million for the youngest African to score in a World Cup event (19 years, 8 months and 20 days). The initial objective was that he had a record with the subsidiary but was from the initial moment in the dynamics of the first team.
Moussa’s first season in Barcelona was satisfactory. Although he was unable to make his debut until November 4 – in a match against CD Ebro played at the Miniestadi (1-1) – and during the course he suffered a four-game ban for hitting a fan who allegedly used racist insults at him , the right-back played 20 games (two goals and three assists) under Garcia Pimienta and made his debut with the first team. In fact, Ernesto Valverde gave him 224 minutes spread over three league games, against Huesca, Celta and Eibar. Coincidentally, none of the three ended with a Barcelona victory.
Wagué’s ostracism began in the summer of 2019. He did so with good news: he was ‘promoted’ to the first team and acquired the number ’16’, but he only played one League game and two inconsequential Champions League matches in the first half of the 2019/20 season. He was loaned out to Nice in search of opportunities to prove himself, but he only played five games and, despite the two assists he made, he could not earn his continuity on the Côte d’Azur. The purchase option of 10 ‘kilos’ was not executed and Barça had to find another way out for him, as Ronald Koeman did not have him. He found the solution in Greece, specifically at PAOK in Thessaloniki.
When it seemed that all the pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fit and that Wagué could enjoy a campaign with enough prominence, The fateful December 13, 2020 arrived. During the derby against Aris Thessaloniki, the Senegalese crashed violently against the goal post to avoid a goal and the patellar tendon in his right knee was severely affected. Wagué then returned to Barcelona to begin a ‘way of the cross’ that lasted until Monday, July 18, when the HNK Gorica announced his arrival. For more than a year and a half, the defender has exercised outside the culé team with the aim of feeling like a footballer again.