Won the premier class with Barça
© Imago
The 37 -year -old Ivan Rakitic announced his end of his career with an emotional video on Instagram. After 20 years of professional at six clubs, the former Champions League winner and four-time Spanish champions with FC Barcelona had something to say about each of his stations-also to FC Schalke 04.
After leaving the professional area at training club FC Basel, Schalke was the first stop abroad for the Croatian born in Aargau. The Bundesliga club paid 5 million euros for the then 19-year-old. His development in the narrow, for which he contributed 16 goals 29 assists in 135 competitive games “opened doors,” said Rakitic. The big career just started.
FC Sevilla paid 2.5 million euros to Schalke in January 2011, after Rakitic still helped the S04 to extend the quarter-finals with his goal in the DFB Cup against Nuremberg against Nuremberg. He no longer experienced the cup triumph at the end of the season with his colleagues. Instead, he won the European League title for the first time with Sevilla, multiplied its market value and went to FC Barcelona for 18 million euros. Rakitic left the Catalan in 2020 by 13 titles Reicher and returned to Seville. His transfer revenues had now grown to EUR 29 million. With his nerve he won the Europa League a second time.
The last two years of his career spent Rakitic at Al-Shabab in Saudi Arabia and at Hajduk Split in the country, for whose national team the Vice World Champion from 2018 completed more than 100 caps. Only eleven Croatian footballers have crossed this brand, Rakitic is seventh with 106 games (15 goals)-including the 2018 World Cup final against France (2: 4). Rakitic said: “Thank you football, you gave me more than I could ever have dreamed of.”