Six La Masia graduates who returned to Barcelona: Pique, Deulofeu…

Adama Traore has packed up his weights and his baby oil, leaving Wolves to return to Barcelona.

It leaves the Premier League without one of its most unique players, but Traore originally developed in Barcelona’s youth system ‘La Masia’ and emerged into the senior set-up a completely unrecognisable figure to the one we know him as today.

The confident, ball-carrying runs that form the central part of his game in 2022 were raw and incomplete when he made his Barcelona debut in 2013.

Even more surprisingly he looked totally different – where his muscles are now there was a skinny, slender frame.

He left Barcelona in search of game time, deemed unnecessary by the club, and undertook a road trip no one has ever willingly taken, moving to Aston Villa and then onto Middlesbrough and Wolves.

“There were a few problems with the club,” Traore has said of his time at Barcelona. “[There were] some misunderstandings and so I decided to leave because I wanted to develop as a player.

“I’d rather not go into what happened with me and the club. I didn’t leave in the best way but I took the decision to leave and I don’t regret it”.

But now that the Blaugrana have decided that he is a good footballer after all, Traore has joined a long list of players whose career paths have taken them back to Barcelona, where it all started.

Here are six other La Masia graduates who left Barcelona only to return later in their careers.

Pique is potentially the most “Did you know that he used to play for X?” player in the world.

The answer is yes, everyone knows Pique used to play for Manchester United. But what you might not know is that Wayne Rooney thinks he returned to Barcelona in 2008 because of…Bolton?

“Bolton away more or less finished Gerard