Arda Turan claims to have seen a move to Manchester United “fall apart at the last minute”, while also coming close to joining Bayern Munich before eventually taking in a frustrating stint at Barcelona.
The Turkish playmaker saw his stock rise across productive spells at Galatasaray and Atletico Madrid.
His creative talents became much sought-after, with leading sides across Europe joining the race to secure his signature.
Barca ultimately prevailed in that battle during the summer of 2015 when prising Arda away from La Liga rivals Atletico.
He was to endure a disappointing time at Camp Nou, with fierce competition for places severely restricting his game time.
Ernesto Valverde has been picked out by the 33-year-old as the coach who ultimately forced him to give up hope in Catalunya, with a loan switch to Istanbul Basaksehir completed in 2018.
Things could have been very different for Arda had previous interest delivered a big-money move, with Barca only snapping him up after seeing heavyweight sides from Germany and England miss out.
Discussing his transfer to Camp Nou and what had gone before, Arda said on his official Instagram account: “My agent, Ahmet Bulut, didn't tell me I had signed for Barcelona. He said I would find out 15 days after.
“I was thinking that I was going to Bayern because a year before my transfer to Manchester United fell apart at the last minute.
“The document fell out of his bag and I saw Barcelona's logo on top of the paper. I couldn't believe it. Ahmet said, 'come here, come here, look at the documents'. I was not sad that I was going to Barcelona.”
AAArda added on his time with the Catalan giants: “Valverde didn't give me any minutes.
“I was the one who had given the most assists behind [Lionel] Messi and [Luis] Suárez the year before.”
Valverde took the reins at Barca in 2017.
Arda saw no competitive minutes from that point, having previously taken in 55 appearances across two seasons – with 15 goals and 11 assists contributed to the collective cause through those outings.
A man with 100 international caps to his name remains under contract with the Blaugrana but is not expected to figure again and saw his loan at Basaksehir punctured by a 16-match ban – later reduced to 10 - for pushing an assistant referee and the handing out of a suspended two-year prison sentence for firing a gun to incite fear and panic, illegal possession of weapons and causing intentional injury.