Juan Román Riquelme was absolutely brilliant throughout his career at Boca Juniors. He won them titles, matches and beat Real Madrid single-handedly in the World Club Cup. He was predicted to be the next Maradona and was wanted by clubs like Juventus, Real Madrid and of course, Barcelona.
In the summer, it was Barcelona who captured Riquelme's services for a mere £7 million. By many Argentinian fans, it was rated as one of the bargains in world football Riquelme started his career perfectly at Barcelona when he came off the bench against Legia Warsaw and scored a magnificent curler. It seemed to be a sign of things to come.
As the league started, Román seemed to feature less and less under former manager, Louis van Gaal. He only started against Novelda in the Copa del Rey and against Club Brugge with a Barça B team. Every time Riquelme played, he always seemed to impress and there were rumours that him and Van Gaal were not getting on very well. As Van Gaal's poor season continued, Riquelme only featured on the bench.
After spending less than 2 years in Europe -he played in several teams and always failed- he went back to Argentina. He lead Boca Juniors again to several championships but he never became the player that was expected.
