One minute to midnight: inside Aubameyang’s late dash to Barcelona

The pizzas arrived close to 10pm and the paperwork even closer to midnight. By then Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had been at Barcelona’s Sant Joan Despí training ground for half an hour and in the city almost all day. He had come ready to sign an 18-month contract having done everything he could to bring them all to this point, reviving the move and maybe his career too, providing an unexpected solution to the club’s desperate search for a striker. But there was still a little longer to wait.

Before he could become a Barcelona player, Aubameyang had to formally become no one’s player. In the end, this wasn’t a deal between them and Arsenal but between him and Arsenal. When the documents arrived confirming his status as a free agent having waived his claim to £300,000 a week for the next 18 months plus a payoff, then and only then could he sign. They got there just in time, at the close of a tense, dramatic day: just one minute before deadline, the president Joan Laporta said.

It was approaching 1am, the winter window closed, when Aubameyang flashed a thumbs-up from the walkway along the top of the building. It wasn’t official, and still wouldn’t be the following evening, but it was done. Looking up at him were reporters and TV cameras. They had been out there all day, watching people come and go, able to make out movement and faces behind the glass, meetings going on. At one point, up in the offices, someone suggested pulling blinds down, but it was a bit late for that. Besides, this wasn’t something to hide: being seen probably did them more good than harm.

Getting this done, finding a solution like this in circumstances like these, was reason for satisfaction. Earlier in the evening Laporta had turned up at a gala in the