Coming out of retirement to sign for Barça, Wojciech Szczesny (35) lost his starting place this season to Joan Garcia. A process that management did not hide from him, even if he extended his contract until 2027 with the Catalan team. It’s already a bonus to be at Barça. “It’s not that I had lost my passion for football… I just wasn’t enthusiastic about the offers I received. Clubs from the top 10 made me offers, but I was not ready to accept such a price. I didn’t want to play just for the money», he admits to GQ to explain his signing in Catalonia at the start of the 2024 school year. He had notably received a proposal from Al-Nassr.
Marc-André ter Stegen’s injury changed everything for him. In an urgent need to have a reliable and quickly physically available goalkeeper on hand, Barça then made contact with the Pole, undoubtedly taken into confidence by Robert Lewandoski. “Three days before announcing my retirement, I even told Lewy (Robert Lewandowski) that I no longer wanted to play for any club… except for Barcelona. When they called me, they probably knew they could convince me.» He reveals that only the motivation of this new project guided him in this choice since coming out of retirement required him to pay compensation to Juventus, his previous club. “I played my first season for free at FC Barcelona. What I received from Barça was exactly what I had to pay back to Juve for terminating my contract prematurely.»
