Footballers who played for both Man Utd & Barcelona

Manchester United and Barcelona are two of the most iconic football clubs in the world, but they haven’t shared that many players over the years.

That doesn’t mean there aren't those who have worn both the famous United red and the Blaugrana stripes.

There are multiple World Cup winners on the list for a start, as well as a couple of flops too.

1. Mark Hughes

For most younger football fans, Mark Hughes is the grizzled old manager of a League Two club who occasionally turns up as a pundit on the television.

But the Welshman was a truly special player in his day and part of an elite group of British stars who were able to play abroad in the 1980s. Back then, clubs on the continent could only play a very limited number of oversea players and the UK wasn't seen as a rich market.

Having come through the youth ranks at United, Hughes cost Barcelona a princely £2m in 1986. But he ended up going back to Old Trafford, via a loan at Bayern Munich, for £1.8m only two years later. He only scored five times in 36 games for Barcelona but is a genuine United legend.

2. Jordi Cruyff

It was always going to be tough for Jordi Cruyff, wasn’t it? With a name like his and the bloodline he has, he was always going to be battling a legacy to which he was never likely to compare.

That was even amplified further in Barcelona, where Johan Cruyff was revered both as a player and a coach.

Jordi joined Barcelona's youth ranks in 1988 when his father was appointed head coach and went on to make 54 first-team appearances - he even played his way into the Netherlands squad for Euro '96.

He joined United off the back of the tournament for £1.4m and was initially a regular in the side. But injuries ultimately limited him to only 58 appearances in four years.

Nowadays, Cruyff is back at Camp Nou as a director.

3. Laurent Blanc

What a player Laurent Blanc was. He won the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000 with France, as well as the Premier League with Manchester United right at the end of his career. He even won a French league title with the somewhat unfashionable Auxerre in 1996.

Following that incredible season with Auxerre, Blanc moved to Barcelona, where he spent just one year. It was a very good season, though. He couldn’t win La Liga but did get his hands on three trophies.

In that one season at Camp Nou, Blanc won the Copa del Rey, the Supercopa de Espana and the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup.

Four years later, he was drafted in at Old Trafford as a replacement for Jaap Stam, who had suddenly been sold to Lazio. He retired there in 2003.

4. Henrik Larsson

You have to hand it to Henrik Larsson – he knew when to make a move, and to where.

The Swede made his name during seven brilliant years at Celtic, where which he scored 242 goals in just 313 games. That’s pretty incredible, even for Scotland. He even won the 2000/01 European Golden Shoe, even though goals in Scotland are less heavily weighted in the rankings.

Many tried to tempt him away during those years but he was hard to prise away from Glasgow. When Larsson did finally leave in 2004, he chose Barcelona. The striker only managed 59 games for the club but won two La Liga titles there, as well as giving a game-changing performance off the bench in the 2006 Champions League final against Arsenal.

After seemingly wishing to play out his career back home in Sweden with Helsingborg, Larsson was recruited on a short loan move by United in 2007. The Red Devils wanted to keep him longer than the 13 games he played, but he had promised Helsingborg he would return on time and kept his word.

5. Gerard Pique

Gerard Pique is rightly remembered as a Barcelona legend, but he could have easily left an amazing Manchester United legacy too.

The funny thing is that Pique’s Barcelona legacy started with him rejecting them. After rising through the ranks at La Masia, he decided to decamp to Manchester aged 17 to sign his first professional contract.

The defender only made 23 appearances for United before being tempted back home in 2008 after winning his first Champions League title.

Pique achieved the rare feat of winning a successive Champions League with a second club in his first season with Barcelona. He then spent more than 14 years at Camp Nou, winning 29 trophies in total, and retired fifth on the club's all-time appearance list.

6. Victor Valdes

Yes, Victor Valdes did in fact play for Manchester United, but you can be easily forgiven for forgetting he ever did given how briefly it lasted.

Having made his senior debut in 2002, Valdes later won just about everything with Barcelona during the Pep Guardiola era. But after 12 years in the first team and 535 appearances, an injured Valdes found himself out of contract with a pre-planned move to Monaco in tatters.

United saw the chance to get him in as cover for fellow Spaniard David de Gea and Monaco even had to pay part of his wages due to them backing out of an agreement to sign him.

7. Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Ask Zlatan Ibrahimovic who the best player to play for both Manchester United and Barcelona is and he will say Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Ask Zlatan Ibrahimovic who the best player to play for Manchester United or Barcelona is and he will also say Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

The larger than life Swedish superstar spent only a brief time with both and his records were strikingly similar. He played 45 matches for Barcelona, scoring 21 goals, and then made 53 appearances for Man Utd, scoring 29 times.

Barcelona spent €46m and Samuel Eto'o in part-exchange to sign Zlatan from Inter in 2009. But he never quite fitted in at Camp Nou. United landed him as a 34-year-old free agent in 2016 after a prolific spell with PSG.

The fact that neither stands out as a particular highlight in his career just goes to how good his career has been.

8. Alexis Sanchez

If you were going to name the biggest Manchester United flops, Alexis Sanchez would be very close to the top of that particular list.

The Chilean certainly wasn’t the same player for United as he was for Barcelona, where he was absolutely brilliant in the first really big move of his career. The style of football suited him better and, although he was often in and out of the side, he still managed 47 goals in 141 appearances.

Sanchez had an even better record for Arsenal in the Premier League, where he proved he could easily cope with the pace and physicality of English football.

What went wrong for him in Manchester, then, is a complete mystery. But five goals in 45 games tells its own story. In truth, he didn’t do much better at Inter, although he has since rediscovered some mojo at Marseille.