Marc-André ter Stegen’s situation at FC Barcelona has been very controversial for a while now, to put things mildly. The Barcelona captain spent most of the 2024-25 season injured due to a horribly unfortunate
accident, which not only robbed him of the ability to cement himself in the German national team following Manuel Neuer’s retirement but forced the Catalans to sign a replacement goalkeeper by convincing former Arsenal FC goalkeeper Wojciech Szczęsny to come out of retirement to play for the historic club. That was bad for ter Stegen, but he seemed poise to take over again once he returned from injury.
Then Barcelona signed Joan Garcia.
On the face of things, signing a young, talented Catalan goalkeeper (who had also been utterly exceptional the previous season) for just over €20 million from your bitter rivals Espanyol seems like a no-brainer transfer. Unless, of course, you are directly looking to replace your goalkeeper of a decade and captain of the team, which they were. Ter Stegen reacted angrily to the transfer and was duly told by head coach Hansi Flick that he had been demoted No. 3 behind Garcia and Szczęsny. Now it would be a fight between the club and the player: Could the club push ter Stegen out the door or would the former Borussia Mönchengladbach goalkeeper dig his heels in and stay?
Then, of course, things got more complicated. This is Barcelona we are talking about, after all.
Ter Stegen suffered yet another big injury, this time to his lower back. He confirmed he would be out for three entire months. One might think this would be bad for the La Liga champions, considering it scuppered any chance of a summer transfer, but this would actually allow the Catalans to use one of their favorite tricks. Calling on La Liga’s rule that 80% of any long term absentee’s salary could be saved as long that injured player would be out for at least 4 months, this would give Barcelona the perfect opportunity to register García instead. They already registered their signings last summer by using this rule and they were looking to do so again.
But ter Stegen would not let that happen. He refused to allow Barcelona to send the documents of his injury to La Liga. Barcelona got even madder, stripping of his captaincy. It was dramatic stuff. Eventually, everyone took a breath, ter Stegen gave Barcelona permission to send his documents, Barcelona restored his captaincy and García was registered as ter Stegen’s injury absence inexplicably and conveniently stretched to more than 4 months. All is well that ends well, right?
Not quite. After all, ter Stegen is still out injured and he still wants to be Germany’s No. 1 at the World Cup. But he cannot do that without regular game time. So, despite his insistence at wanting to stay at Barcelona, his club of over 10 years, Florian Plettenberg reports that the German may finally be considering a move away:
Marc-André ter Stegen has not yet made a decision on whether he will stay at FC Barcelona over the winter or move elsewhere. A transfer is no longer ruled out, despite other reports. A final decision is still pending. If he stays, he risks ending up on the bench under Flick/Deco/Laporta. However, he needs to be playing if he wants to go to the World Cup. His contract runs until 2028. Still a top-class keeper.
If ter Stegen were to finally remain fit and managed to get regular game time, it would certainly make Germany head coach Julian Nagelsmann’s life a lot simpler. But Barcelona’s captain may not be welcome at the club anymore and to reach the level of fitness and game time to earn a spot on the plane to the U.S., he might have to leave. This could be a situation to keep an eye on in January.
