Barcelona Rumors: Bundesliga Star Who Didn't Like Lionel Messi Hints At Barca Return?

A former Barcelona star could be open to a return to Camp Nou.

Prior to becoming one of the most remarkable players in Bundesliga, Dani Olmo first represented the Barcelona youth team. Roughly seven years after he left the Catalan club, Olmo hinted at a possible move back to his boyhood club.

“Barça will always have a special place in my heart,” Olmo said in a recent piece for The Players’ Tribune. “It was a privilege to have played there. It is a point of reference for the rest of the football world and any child would give anything to play there, where so many greats have arrived and learned the trade.”

Olmo joined Barcelona at age 9 and was honed by the club’s famed La Masia academy. But unlike most Barcelona academy graduates, Olmo wasn’t a huge Lionel Messi fan.

Recounting his first encounter with Messi, Olmo revealed that he even refused to have a picture with the Barcelona captain.

"One time, before I even joined La Masia, I accompanied my father while he was managing a game at Castelldefels,” Olmo recalled. "I was eight years old. I was playing happily by myself with a ball, when someone — I think it was a friend of my dad’s — came over and told me, 'Hey, Dani, come here! You’re not going to believe this. You’re going to have your picture taken with Lionel Messi!'”

"Apparently, Messi had a friend playing in the Castelldefels game and had come down to see him,” he continued. "Wow, Messi, right? In Castelldefels? What kid wouldn’t want their picture with him? Well, me! I was like, 'No, thanks. I’m good. I want to keep playing! It’s just a picture, right?'”

In 2014, at age 16, Olmo left Barcelona for Croatian side Dinamo Zagreb where he became one of the team’s most notable stars. In 2018, rumors linked Olmo’s name to a return to Barca, but nothing concrete happened between both parties.

After all, the Spanish attacker’s exceptional talent didn’t go unnoticed. In January 2020, Olmo left Dinamo Zagreb for Bundesliga side RB Leipzig, where he became one of the team’s most consistent performers as well, having been instrumental to the team’s semi finals run in the UEFA Champions League last season.

This year’s World Cup qualifiers is no different for Olmo. He has been generating buzz around Spain following his late goal against Georgia and a sensational opening goal against Kosovo.