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FC Barcelona and Ilkay Gündoğan have reached an agreement for the German international to sign for the Catalans now that his contract with Manchester City has ended. He will join for two seasons, through to June 30, 2025, with the option to stay for one more year. His buyout clause has been set at 400 million Euros.
Gündoğan turns 33 next October 24 and has a long and distinguished football career behind him. It all began in his native Gelsenkirchen, at Schalke 04.
His youth period concluded at another club in the area, VfL Bochum, after which it was at 1.FC Nurnberg where he made his first impact on the Bundesliga. But it was at Schalke 04’s biggest local rival, Borussia Dortmund, where he really started to become a household name, scoring a penalty for them in the 2013 UEFA Champions League although it wasn’t enough to win the trophy. But under Jürgen Klopp, he did win the Bundesliga in 2011/12.
In his seven years at Manchester City, he has truly established an enormous collection of medals. Having won the Premier League five times, this year he was in the City side that finally lifted its first UEFA Champions League. In seven seasons in England, he scored 60 goals. Only two Premiership midfielders were able to score more in that same period.
And now he is arriving at FC Barcelona, an attacking midfielder who reads the game to perfection and also knows how to put the ball in the back of the net. Basically, he is one of the world’s best midfielders of the last decade or so.
