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Barcelona are the most successful club in European footballing history, having won more than 90 major honors since they were founded 120 years ago.
The Catalans are the only European club to have won two continental trebles, and their success has catapulted them to fame beyond the far reaches of the planet.
Given their pedigree as one of the premier clubs in the world, it comes as no surprise that Barcelona have also found massive success off it, with the Barcelona brand valued at billions of dollars.
The club has paraded some of the best players in history, and these players have all played a key role in shaping the Blaugrana's illustrious history.
Most of the club's success has been founded upon an almost pristine system which sees the Catalans blood players through the different age grades at La Masia, before ushering them into the senior team and indeed, some of the club's greatest player including the greatest of them all have passed through this tried and tested system.
However, for all of their impressiveness in training young players, Barcelona are not immune to the cutthroat spending nature of the current dispensation, and it can even be argued that the LaLiga giants are even the standard-bearers when it comes to extravagant spending, with reports revealing that Barcelona were the first European club to spend over €1 billion in the last five years.
There have been more than a few big-money purchases by Barcelona particularly in the last decade, and while a few like Luis Suarez and Neymar went on to achieve immortality at Camp Nou, the majority flattered to deceive.
In this piece, we shall be highlighting six big-money signings who massively underperformed at Barcelona.
#6 Paulinho - €40m from Guangzhou Evergrande (2017)
Paulinho's purchase by Barcelona was shocking to many degrees, as for starters, he was coming from the Chinese League which (with all due respect to the giant strides taking by the Asian nation in football development in recent years) is not really classified as the strongest of leagues, while the fact that his physical style of play goes against everything a Barcelona midfielder should be, set him up for failure from the get-go.
However, the Brazilian rose above the cynicism to shock everyone with his performances and scored nine goals from 34 league matches to help the Catalans wrest LaLiga away from Real Madrid.
However, in further shocking scenes, the club board decided to let the former Tottenham man return to Guangzhou Evergrande on loan prior to the start of the 2018/2019 season with the condition of a permanent purchase at the end of the campaign.
It might be a tad harsh to classify Paulinho's Barcelona spell as a failure, but the fact that he spent just one full season at the club before returning to Chine despite the huge amount expended to get him partly justifies this claim.
#5 Andre Gomes - €35m from Valencia (2016)
After impressing for Valencia and helping his country Portugal to lift Euro 2016, Andre Gomes completed a mega move to Barcelona in the summer of 2016.
This was a year on from the iconic Xavi's departure, and it was expected that Gomes would help soften the hole left by Xavi in the middle, but this proved to not be the case.
Andre Gomes struggled massively at Barcelona and looked nothing like the player he was at the Mestalla, with fans of Marca voting him as the worst signing of the season.
Things got progressively worse for him, and he found himself on the receiving end of boos by the Barcelona faithful, with the Portuguese international revealing that the criticism leveled at him led to psychological and emotional trauma.
A loan spell to Everton was undergone in 2018 and having impressed significantly at Goodison Park, the Merseysiders took up their option of making his move permanent in the summer o 2019.
#4 Malcom - €41m fom Bordeaux (2018)
The intricacies and shenanigans involved in getting Malcom to Barcelona are well documented, but a year on from his controversial arrival, he is already a forgotten man.
The Brazilian had earned a reputation of being one of the fastest rising stalwarts in Europe with his displays for Bordeaux and had most top clubs chasing after his signature, with Camp Nou being his ultimate destination.
The Barcelona attack is replete with multiple world-class forwards, and breaking in is always going to be difficult, and Malcom found this out first hand, as he was nothing more than an afterthought in his only season in Catalunya, and made just six starts in LaLiga as Valverde retained the league title.
Despite impressing on the few occasions when he did play, there was never a time when Malcom felt like an important player at the club and it came as no major surprise when Barcelona decided to offload him to Zenit Saint Petersburg over the summer.
#3 Marc Overmars - £25m from Arsenal (2000)
In the immediate aftermath of Barcelona receiving a world record fee from the sale of Luis Figo to Real Madrid, the Catalans expended a significant chunk of that sum in the Premier League, bringing in Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit from Arsenal, making the former the most expensive Dutch and Barcelona player in history at that time
Overmars had been a star in England under Arsene Wenger, playing a key role in the early days of Arsenal's transformation into an elite club under the Frenchman and it was expected that he would bring his good form with him to Camp Nou.
However, that failed to happen as the former Ajax man struggled to replicate his England successes in Spain and was one of the many failings by Barcelona both on ad off the field at the start of this millennium.
His Barcelona career started decently enough, as he ended his first campaign with eight goals from 33 league matches. He, however, did not score throughout his second season, despite making 20 LaLiga appearances mostly off the bench.
In total, Marc Overmars scored just 19 goals from 97 matches in all competitions for Barcelona without any trophy to show for his efforts.
He departed the club in 2004 ostensibly to go into retirement but returned for another forgettable spell with Go Ahead Eagles in the 2008/2009 season.
Overmars is currently the director of football at Ajax Amsterdam and played a key role in getting the Frenkie de Jong deal to Barcelona over the line.
#2 Zlatan Ibrahimovic - €66m from Inter Milan (2010)
It is not very often that you find Zlatan Ibrahimovic and the word 'failure' in the same sentence, as the Swede has raised the bar for top-level performances with his displays over the last 15 years. However, that is exactly what the legendary forward's spell at Barcelona would be classified as.
Having starred in the Netherlands with Ajax and Italy with first Juventus and then Inter Milan, Barcelona purchased Zlatan Ibrahimovic from the latter in a deal worth €46m in cash plus a player, with Samuel Eto'o going the other way.
The Cameroonian had distinguished himself with his performance in front of goal at Nou Camp, and replacing him was always going to be a herculean task, but if there was anybody who could step into Eto's shoes, it was Ibrahimovic.
That, however, failed to happen, as the former PSG man massively underperformed in Barcelona's colors.
Zlatan is famed for his ultra confidence bordering on arrogance, and he did not get along with Pep Guardiola who he mockingly refers to as 'the philosopher,' while he found Barcelona's calm culture bemusing and referred to the club's players as school children.
He departed Camp Nou for AC Milan after just one season, scoring the respectable sum of 21 goals from 45 matches in all competitions, and his chapter is made all the more jarring for Barcelona fans in that Samuel Eto'o helped fire Inter Milan to a treble (knocking Barcelona out along the way) while Ibrahimovic struggled to prove his worth.
#1 Philippe Coutinho - €140m from Liverpool (2018)
The last 18 months have been truly tumultuous for Philippe Coutinho, as he has gone from adored and revered at Liverpool to unwanted and discarded by Barcelona.
Indeed, Coutinho's fall from grace is spectacular and is a perfect example of the saying that 'the grass is not always greener on the other side,' with fans and his coach alike warning him of the pitfalls associated with a transfer to Barcelona.
In hindsight, it is easy to state that the Brazilian international made a wrong career move by ditching an up-and-coming Liverpool for Barcelona, but it should be remembered that 18 months ago, the Reds were not the winning machine they are right now, while the fame and prestige attached to Barcelona means that turning them down is such a rarity in football.
During the summer window, Philippe Coutinho found himself linked with virtually every club in Europe, and following his loan transfer to Bayern Munich, the Rio native would hope to capture his best form which was jarringly lacking for most of the time he spent in Spain.
