Bojan Krkic’s father has revealed that Barcelona turned down the opportunity to sign both Thibaut Courtois and Raphael Varane.
Krkic Snr, a former professional footballer, was a scout for Barca until 2011 and told Cadena SER the club was offered the pair before they were big stars.
“We were given the chance to sign Courtois [pictured] straight from Belgium when I was in my last year at the club,” revealed Krkic about the current Chelsea goalkeeper.
“At the age of 19 he was established as No 1 with Genk and one of his agents was a friend of mine, a former teammate in Yugoslavia, who spoke really highly of him.
“We watched a lot of videos and I made it known I was really impressed, although nothing was done about it.
“He was very keen to join Barca and was willing to sign a permanent deal and play for Barca B, or even be loaned out.
“We’d discussed a €3m fee as he was a relative unknown. It was a bargain. A month later he joined Chelsea.
“It must have been forgotten about in [director of football] Zubizarreta’s office, in his video library or a draw.”
The Catalans also chose not to sign Real Madrid central defender Varane when he was a youngster at Lens.
“I got a tip about Varane when he was playing as a holding midfielder. I raved about him and said he was someone we should keep our eye on and that we should sign him.
“I put that in my report and a scout was sent to watch Lens at Monaco, but the opinion that came back wasn’t positive and that was the end of it,” he disclosed.