On the evening of October 24, Beijing time, the 10th round of the new La Liga season - Barca vs Real Madrid's national derby is about to be unveiled! As the dragon and tiger in La Liga, and even the two most prestigious clubs in world football, the relationship between Barca and Real Madrid can be described as tit-for-tat and competitive in terms of politics, geography, race and competition. However, it is no coincidence that in the long history of a hundred years, there have also been many players who have played for these two giants, and there have even been special cases of directly transferring from one of them to the sworn enemy. Throughout the history of the national derby, such "two-faced people" have also written their own stories...
National Derby "Two-Faced" No.5: Louis Enrique
The current Spanish national team coach Enrique has previously been in charge of Barca for three seasons from 2014 to 2017, leading the team to win 9 championships of various sizes, and also led the team to win the "five crowns" in the 2014/15 season. But many people do not know that the Barça meritorious coach is not only a barca celebrity in the player era, but also has left a strong mark in the history of Real Madrid's team.
In the summer of 1991, Luis Enrique moved from Atlético Gijón to Real Madrid, where he played extremely well in the attacking midfield, and at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, he helped the Spanish Olympic team win the championship. During his five years with Real Madrid, Enrique won 1 league title, 1 Spanish Copa del Rey and 1 Spanish Super Cup with the team, but in the original Real Madrid squad, Enrique, who was always positioned as a "golden oil" player, was always in a somewhat awkward situation, and his request for a salary increase was difficult to be satisfied by the club. So, in the summer of 1996, Enrique, who had a complete outfall with Real Madrid, chose to leave, and his new owner was barca, his former sworn enemy.
After joining Barca, Enrique not only quickly became the main position of the team, but also gradually took over the captain's armband, and became the soul of Barca with a tenacious spirit and tenacious fighting spirit. Especially on the stage of the national derby, whenever a teammate is fouled, Enrique will always stand up for the first time to confront the opponent, and will openly confront the Real Madrid fans after scoring at the Bernabeu. During the turbulent years of Barca at the turn of the century, it was Enrique who supported the indomitable backbone of the team. In May 2004, at Enrique's retirement ceremony, Barca paid tribute to the predatory captain by hosting a farewell performance for 90,000 people.
National Derby "Two-Faced" No.4: Michelle Laudrup
Back in the 1990s, when Barca "Dream Team" was born, Danish football superstar Michel Laudrup was one of the indispensable cores of the team's central axis, and together with Stoichkov, Ronald Koeman and others, he built a golden axis that was invincible and shocked the entire European football world. Whether it's the technical aspects of advancing with the ball, inserting in the back row and fatal passes, Michel Laudrup is almost at the extreme. During his time at Barca, he followed the team to create four consecutive league titles from 1990 to 1994, and also lifted the Champions League trophy in 1992.
However, due to barca godfather Cruyff's transformation of the team system and the arrival of the later "lone wolf" Romario, Michel Laudrup's position in the team was affected, so he chose to transfer to the sworn enemy Real Madrid in the summer of 1994. At the Bernabeu, the former "Danish fairy tale" creator quickly became the core of Real Madrid's new organisation and won La Liga again in the 1994/95 season, setting a magical "4+1" La Liga five-game winning streak. Unfortunately, due to factors such as age and injury, Laudrup's Real Madrid career did not reach the heights of the Barca era, and after two seasons of playing, he left Japan in the J-League to join the Kobe Victory Team.
National Derby "Two-Faced" No.3: Eto'o
Eto'o of the "African Cheetah" has a legendary career, and at the peak of his career, he was the number one striker in African football, winning the Champions League three times, winning the African Footballer of the Year four times, and becoming the only player in football who has been able to win the triple crown at different clubs for two consecutive years.
At the age of 16, Eto'o, who had just entered the professional football arena, joined Real Madrid, but he could only spend time in the B team without being reused. After many loan spells, Eto'o, who had been unable to gain a foothold in real Madrid's first team, finally officially transferred to Mallorca in the summer window of 2000 for a low price of £4.4 million, leaving him with only seven appearances and no goals.
However, after moving to Mallorca, Eto'o quickly underwent a career transformation, scoring 11 goals in his first full season, helping the team to a third-place finish in the league. During his four and a half years in Mallorca, Eto'o scored 54 league goals and became the club's top scorer in La Liga history, attracting the attention of Real Madrid's nemesis Barcelona. In the summer of 2004, the Cameroon striker switched to Camp Nou for 24 million euros and scored 24 goals in La Liga in his first season, winning the league title as a main striker.
Perhaps because of his resentment of being depressed during his time at Real Madrid, Eto'o actually shouted the slogan "Real Madrid, bastards, salute to the champions" at the Barça celebration after winning la Liga that season, in order to mock his old club, and he was fined 12,000 euros by the Spanish Football Association.
But Eto'o's career at Barca has been an apparent success, helping the Rosso to three La Liga titles and two Champions League titles in his five seasons, and in both champions league finals in 2006 and 2009, Eto'o helped Barca score decisive goals, and he is also regarded as a humerus during Barca's "Dream II" and "Dream III" dynasties.
National Derby "Two-Faced" No.2: Ronaldo
As the most legendary superstar striker in the history of Brazilian football, Ronaldo's first stop in the top five European leagues was Barcelona – in August 1996, Barca signed him from Eindhoven in the Dutch League for a transfer fee of $20 million, and in his debut season, he made 49 appearances in all competitions and scored 47 goals, including 34 goals in La Liga, winning the league's top scorer and the European Golden Boot of the season. In the match with Compostela, he scored a classic goal that can be recorded in the annals of football history, thus gaining the name of "alien". At the end of 1996, Ronaldo also won the first World Footballer of the Year trophy of his career for his outstanding performance at Barca.
Unfortunately, Ronaldo's fond memories of Barca are only two years away, when he moved to Serie A giants Inter Milan in the summer of 1997 for a record fee of $27.9 million, and spent five years with nerazzurri, during which time he won the European Ballon d'Or and his second World Footballer of the Year.
In the summer of 2002, Ronaldo followed Brazil all the way to the World Cup in South Korea and Japan, and he also won the Golden Boot and Silver Ball of the World Cup. Real Madrid president Florentino, who was aiming to build the All-Star Corps at the time, spent 44.25 million euros to bring Ronaldona, who had just tasted the bitterness of the league title in the inter milan team, to his command, and the "aliens" became the new members of the new generation of luxurious "galactic battleships".
Dramatically, however, after returning to La Liga and joining his former rivals, Ronaldo's club career has not been smooth sailing ever since. Although his debut season at Real Madrid helped the team win la Liga again after a gap of three years, it also became the only league title of Ronaldo's career. Plagued by ongoing injuries, he continued to decline in form for the next two and a half years at Real Madrid, never to regain his peak glory, and finally joined AC Milan for a whopping 7.5 million euros in the winter window of 2007, leaving the La Liga stage.
National Derby "Two-Faced" No.1: Figo
Having won the European Ballon d'Or (Eurofair) and the World Footballer of the Year, the two top individual honors in football and 9 top league championships, Luis Figo is the leader and banner of Portugal's "Golden Generation" and one of Portugal's greatest superstars before Ronaldo came out.
In June 1995, Figo joined Barcelona from Sporting Portugal, and the sky-high transfer fee of $20 million also set a world record at the time. In his first season at Camp Nou, Figo was firmly in the main position, and his open view of the big picture, brilliant passing, amazing possession ability and textbook dribbling skills made him quickly become the team's right wing. From 1995 to 2000, Figo helped the team win two consecutive La Liga titles during his five seasons with Barca, and even wore Barça's captain's armband at one point, making him a hero in the hearts of fans.
However, the story of the yin and yang occurred in the summer of 2000, when Florentino, who was running for real Madrid, made a bold statement that as long as he became the new president of the club, he would poach figo, the number one superstar in the sworn enemy team, to real Madrid. As soon as this statement came out, almost everyone, including Figo, thought florentino was whimsical, and Figo's agent also took the opportunity to sign a $2 million guarantee contract with the later football tycoon, and began salary increase negotiations with Barca. Unexpectedly, Florentino was finally elected with his unique scheming and business ability, and Figo and his team of agents, who were full of success, had to accept the reality of the transfer - otherwise, Figo would have to pay up to nearly $30 million in damages if they defaulted.
So after weighing the pros and cons, Figo, who had lost the right to choose, reluctantly agreed to a transfer fee ($56.1 million) to the sworn enemy Real Madrid for a transfer fee ($56.1 million) that once again rewrote the football record, and helped the team win the La Liga title in the first season after joining, and then followed the team to the Champions League in the second season, and he was also elected World Footballer of the Year in 2001. On the other hand, Barca, which lost Figo, fell into a 5-year low, but it was from then on that the club began to pay more attention to the cultivation of la Masia's youth camp.
Figo's shocking transfer of the century has long been an eternal pain in the hearts of Barca fans, and his originally sacred and tall image collapsed almost overnight. In the National Derby on November 23, 2002, figo wore a Real Madrid jersey to visit the Camp Nou stadium with the famous "pig's head" incident when fans threw a bloody pig's head at Figo from the stands to mock the "Judas" who betrayed the team.