FC Barcelona Acquires the Signature of Ivan Rakitic

While the World Cup is taking place in Brazil, there are many other storylines going around in the soccer world. Last night, we got news that Sevilla’s and Croatia’s midfielder, Ivan Rakitic, signed on a 5-year deal with Spanish team, FC Barcelona. This seems to be a good signing for Barcelona as they just lost midfielder and Spaniard Cesc Fabregas to Chelsea in a five-year deal to send him back to the Premier League.

The 26-yea-old has proved himself the past three years in Sevilla as one of the rising stars in soccer and in Spain. Rakitic was born in Switzerland to Croatian parents and we saw his career kick off at the age of 16 when European scouts saw this young man’s potential but his family decided to stay in Basel to allow him to play more regularly in a smaller league.

Rakitic made his professional debut for Basel in 2006 in a match against Neuchatel Xamax and while in Basel, he made huge success during his second season, scoring 11 goals in 33 appearances. After that breakout year, many European teams wanted the young man from Croatia and it was the German side Schalke 04 who got his signature for 5 million euros. During his time in Schalke, he appeared 97 times and scored 12 goals in a span of four years.

Sevilla then signed him and he had a huge success during his time there, scoring 27 goals during his 117 appearances. He is currently in Brazil for the World Cup, where he is among Croatia’s leading players along with Mario Mandžukić and Luka Modrić.

Rakitic is the first major signing to be made by new coach of FC Barcelona, Luis Enrique, and is the start of the rebuilding of a Barcelona team who struggled to win some sort of silverware during the 2013/14 season in the LIGA BBVA. Rakitic will also be a great addition to Barcelona’s lineup in which he will play along Andres Iniesta and Sergio Busquets to add a strong line in the midfield and attacking positions as well.