it wasn't so long ago that FC Barcelona used to strike fear into the hearts of opposition everywhere but over time with the departure of longtime Legends the Aging of their core Squad and cless management that the once Great and Mighty blue Grana have fallen to a shell of their former selves the club itself has also been struggling heavily on the financial side with nearly € 1.5 billion EUR in debt about double that of the second closest AC Milan with 700 million but who's to blame many will obviously L point to Club management like former president
Joseph btoo but if you take a look at it from another perspective it might not be wrong to say that the one person to have dealt the most damage to the club in recent years is no other than Philipe Cino Not only was he the most expensive player ever signed by the club more than Ibrahimovic and almost double what they paid for Neymar at a whopping €150 million EUR and on the other hand helped to crush them himself effectively putting an end to the Leno Messi era at Barcelona and setting off a chain of events
that the club would never recover from even till this very day but this wild sequence of events was never even supposed to happen in the first place cachinho was destined to make a name for himself without ever having to leave his beloved longside Club of Liverpool because like his former manager Jurgen klopp once famously told him stay here and they'll end up building a statue in your honor but go somewhere else to Barcelona to Bayern Munich to Real Madrid and you'll be just another player but while urgen Klo was right cacino would effectively change the
layout of football as we know it today because it's insignificant as you might think he is if there were ever a concept of parallel worlds out there I genuinely believe that he is the trigger that if only things were slightly different would change the footballing world landscape as we know it but before you think I'm starting to go crazy just hear me out because in his younger days Gia was held in extremely high regard so his National side of Brazil winning the 2011 under 20 World Cup as one of the nation's brightest young Stars helping
bring the hope that Brazil would once again produce another golden generation and although he would win the 2010 Italian super cup with inter even the club and with so much expectations for cacino it seemed like he was living short of them but there was one Club who was willing to take the bet a club that still believed in his potential and decided to take him on and after amily 8.5 million pound transfer fee from Inter Milan ccino would join Liverpool and become one of the Reds going on a journey that would legitimately make him one
of the most exciting young players in the world keep in mind this was still somewhat far from the glory years that Liverpool would experience under Jurgen klopp no this was still the era of Brendan Rogers cachinho always had potential to be world class but it was at Liverpool where he really began to show this to the world he'd be named Liverpool's player of the month just a few weeks after making his debut scoring three goals and providing seven assists in just 13 matches showing signs that Liverpool's bet on cacino was starting to pay off even
becoming a huge factor in their second place finish just a season later which was their closest to winning a league title in decades before that Infamous slip by Steven Gerard that ultimately resulted in losing the title just two points away from Manchester City still despite the tragic slip up cacino was starting to show real signs of playmaking genius mixed in with that famous Brazilian flare he was truly a jack of all trades on the attack whether it was playing as an attacking midfielder second Striker or out wide on the wing cacino flourished in beating his
man and providing assists while still being a goal-scoring threat regardless of where he played I mean there was a reason why Liverpool fans gave him the nickname of the little magician because at his best he had the elite tight dribbling and close control of Andress Iniesta mixed with pace and the natural Brazilian flare in his handling he was able to consistently attack opponents one-on-one or even dribble through quite a few and because he was very comfortable with both feet his passing and playmaking creativity was Elite plus ccino was always a setpiece threat with his consistently
accurate curling freaki and by the time that Jurgen klopp moved to Liverpool cachino's goal scoring had become even more refined as he would even lead the club as their top scorer in the 201617 season scoring 14 goals and providing 10 assists truly solidifying him as both a goal-scoring and playmaking threat that's what led to him becoming the two-time Liverpool fans player of the season and two-time Liverpool players player of the season and we all know it would take Klo and Liverpool a few seasons to really start winning and and gaining some respect after years and
years of missing out on major silverware and klopp truly loved cachinho having so much faith in him and even naming him Captain but halfway through the 2017 18 season probably Is Us in the best form he's ever been in his career with 13 goal contributions in 14 Premier League matches and seven goal contributions in five Champions League matches Cachino would receive an offer that was just too good to refuse because halfway through the season in which Liverpool would make it all the way to the champions League final in which I remind you Cachino was averaging
1.4 gold contributions per game Barcelona would pay a whopping 150 million EUR transfer fee to sign him from Liverpool making him the most expensive transfer in Barcelona history and the third most expensive transfer of all time and in hindsight this was a terrible decision for Barcelona at the time news about their Deb was not as public but looking back they would basically add 10% of their total debt just to acquire a single player in Cachino to help bring the Club Champions League Glory however immediately things would start to go downhill cachinho would start his time
at Barca with a thigh injury that would leave him out for several weeks and when he finally recovered he was already being heavily criticized by Barca fans simply for the massive price stag the club bought him for and their expectations were already Monumental despite his pretty good form of 13 goal contributions in 18 La Liga matches and three goal contributions in four Copa del re matches with Barca winning the league title and taking home the Copa del trophy for the Barca fans it just wasn't good enough as Barca would be knocked out in the Champions
League quarterfinals in embarrassing fashion by Roma however the very Following season a change in his role would see ccino being played between Jordy Alba and Leno Messi making cachino's overall touches and impact on the game become significantly smaller and with the addition of Frankie dong the role that kachin would flourish at and Liverpool would become all the more insignificant the lack of presence and touches really impacted his ability to play at his best and while he was able to help them win a second La Liga title and Spanish super cup they would be knocked out
in the Champions League semifinal to none other than a Liverpool side that cacino walked away from and with having less impact and less touches overall providing only 16 goal contributions in 54 matches Barcelona had already grown impatient with ccino even though they were the ones who removed his ability to play phenomenally like he did just one season prior but instead of trying to fix their mistakes they would make an even bigger one as they would send their most expensive transfer in history to a club that would eventually in the very same season would absolutely destroy
Barcelona in what would be Messi's last ever quarterfinal appearance for the club the historic 82 thrashing with ccino even scoring a brace and providing assists against his former Club was a true spit to the face playing much better with a more familiar role in Bayern having 20 goal contributions in 35 matches and going on to lift the Champions League trophy himself and as he came back to return from loone The Following Season just as barcel was somewhat starting to give him back the role that he was doing well in he would go down with a
knee injury and miss out on the entire year that enormous buy out of Cachino from Barca not only accelerated their financial problems up to the point where they would eventually have to start selling grass from Camp new just to make a little money back but it also stopped the last chance lonel Messi had to win the Champions League with Barcelona and it was the biggest of the continuous blunders from the club both in performance and financials resulting in them not being able to afford to keep their greatest player ever on the squad having no choice
but to watch him go off to PSG so close your eyes and imagine a world where Barcelona never signed ccino it's possible that Messi would still be in the Catalan Club I also genuinely believe that if mbappe won the 2019 2020 UCL Final in which cachinho had eight goal contributions in 11 man matches during the tournament plus played masterfully in the second half of the final itself that mbappe would have been satisfied with his time at Paris and would have joined Real Madrid a long time ago as they might have tried even harder to sign
him for the simple hype that would be around him and to compete more fiercely with Barcelona who would still have Lionel Messi on their side plus if Bayern hadn't won the Champions League it's highly possible that Holland would have stayed in Bundesliga even longer perhaps with Bayern willing to break transfer records themselves eles to sign the striker to try to make another push at becoming European Champions call me crazy but I truly believe in a parallel universe where Barcelona's management weren't as foolish as they were we would see Holland in Bayern mbappe at Real Madrid
and Messi still at Barca because after that final the injury at Barca the little magician's magic would never be the same although ccino did show us a glimpse with his eight goal contributions in 19 matches for Aston Villa in the 2021 22 season but by then he was no more than a shell of his former self as Barcelona had already wasted his best years by not giving him the same role he did so well in when he first arrived back then cacino was actually one of my favorite players to watch because at a time where
old Midfield maestros like Iniesta were well past their prime it was guys like ccino that really showed you similar flashes of Brilliance but whether we like it or not that's the way things happened and because of cino's butterfly effect that's how the world of football as we know it today came to be
