If Vitesse takes on Rapid Wien in the interim round of the Conference League on Thursday evening, Yusuf Demir may be within the lines of the Austrians. The eighteen-year-old winger returned to Rapid Wien last month after spending the past six months on loan at Barcelona. Demir started in Spain as the apple of Ronald Koeman’s eye and a very promising purchase, but slowly disappeared from the scene as the months went on and eventually had to make way for Barcelona to make purchases.
By Chris Meijer
“It’s a shame what they’ve done to this young boy when I hear the stories in the media. They left it behind so they wouldn’t have to buy it. He is an eighteen-year-old player with extraordinary potential. He will be given the choice to go back or to sit in the stands for six months. That is embarrassing.” Maximilian Wöber’s words last Friday were as striking as they were significant. His club Red Bull Salzburg had just won 1-2 against Rapid Wien and yet the ex-Ajacied spoke about a player of the opponent, who had only played for five minutes as a substitute. However, Wöber expressed exactly how people in Austria generally think about Demir’s eventual dramatic adventure in Barcelona.
Demir’s name had been circled in red in the notebooks of the scouts of European top clubs for years. Demir – dubbed the ‘Austrian Lionel Messi’ – had just turned 16 when he made his Rapid Wien main-squad debut and played his first cap for the Austria national team before his 18th birthday. Ajax, Manchester City, Manchester United, Bayern Munich, RB Leipzig, Red Bull Salzburg, Internazionale and Borussia Dortmund, among others, were chasing Demir, but Barcelona pulled the longest end and rented him with a non-mandatory option to buy for a value of ten million euros from Rapid Wien. Despite Demir’s intention to join Barcelona B, he was given a chance to make his way to the main squad during the preparation for this season.
‘Demir, protagonista e intocable para Koeman’, was the headline at the beginning of August by Mundo Deportivo. After the friendly match against VfB Stuttgart (0-3 win), the Spanish media knew for sure: top talent Demir would become an undisputed protagonist at Koeman’s Barcelona. A positively surprised Koeman would have personally congratulated Joan Laporta a few days earlier with the arrival of Demir, whom he threw for the lions in the exhibition games against Nástic (4-0 win) and Girona (3-1 win) and as a basic player therein. left an excellent impression. In fact, Koeman even labeled Demir as ‘the future of Barcelona’. “We are always open to young players, they are the future of the club. Guys like Balde, Nico, Gavi and the recruited Demir can all become great players,” Koeman said on the Barcelona website. “You have to give them time to get used to the speed at the first. We’ll see which of these guys we’re going to use.”
Demir celebrates a goal in one of the 38 games he played for Rapid Wien before his departure to Barcelona.
Partly because of his versatility – Demir can play on both wings and as an attacking midfielder – Koeman became charmed by the Austrian with Turkish roots. Due to the departure of Lionel Messi and Antoine Griezmann and the absence of the injured Ansu Fati, Ousmane Dembele, Martin Braithwate and Sergio Aguero, Koeman was actually somewhat forced to call on Demir. After becoming the second-youngest player in LaLiga against Athletic Club at 18 years and 80 days – only Lionel Messi in 2004 at 17 years and 114 days younger – Barcelona seemed already planning to activate that option. . But as the season progressed, Demir slowly but surely disappeared from the spotlight.
After his debut against Athletic Club, Koeman called on Demir five more times. Sport At the end of October – shortly before Koeman’s dismissal and after Demir had been on the bench for three games in a row for 90 minutes – he revealed that Koeman’s love for the top talent had cooled somewhat. “Demir has had a good preparation, but the pressure on him was great when the competition started. He initially tried one-on-one duels, but then stopped at one point,” he said. Sport a source within Barcelona. “He takes no risks. When a ball comes to him, he always plays it short and safe.”
“Yusuf is a young player. He has made his minutes, but it is not easy to compete at the level of Barcelona. He is getting better and now has to wait for his chance,” said Koeman at the press conference in the run-up to the away game against Rayo Vallecano. In what turned out to be his last game as coach of Barcelona, Koeman let Demir participate for another half hour. With Koeman’s resignation, Demir also ‘disappeared’, the Spanish media concluded a few weeks later. Xavi called on him three more times: once as a basic player in the Champions League match against Benfica and two as a substitute against Espanyol (LaLiga) and Bayern Munich (Champions League). The short raid in the Allianz Arena turned out to be Demir’s ninth and last official appearance for Barcelona.
On behalf of Barcelona, Demir played a total of 290 matches in 9 official matches.
That number is no coincidence, as the option to buy in the rental agreement with Rapid Wien became mandatory as soon as Demir played ten official games in the Barcelona first team. Given the dire financial situation, it was deliberately chosen to save that ten million euros and to invest in attracting (and being able to register) Dani Alves, Ferran Torres, Adama Traoré and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. The Maradona Cup – a friendly against Boca Juniors that did not count against the option to buy – eventually became Demir’s last game in blue-red in December. During the last matches in LaLiga, the Copa del Rey and the Supercopa, Demir was no longer part of the match selection. According to the official reading, initially because of stomach problems, later because Barcelona was canceling its lease.
The early return of Demir actually means a setback for Rapid Wien. The 32-time Austrian champion has already reluctantly agreed to a transfer to Barcelona. Rapid Wien faced financial difficulties last summer as a result of the corona pandemic and therefore had to let the growth brilliant go to bring in money. The €500,000 rent Barcelona paid was a lot less than what other interested clubs were willing to pay, but Demir was determined to go to Barcelona to play with his idol Lionel Messi. It was a double setback for Demir: Messi left for Paris Saint-Germain before the start of this season and after six months he is back to square one. “The departure from Barcelona caused disappointment. But I also became a professional there,” Demir said in conversation with the Rapid Wien television channel. “Now I want to play again, have fun and enjoy.”
Rapid Wien has to get Demir ready again as soon as possible to be able to play in the spotlight. Before his departure from Barcelona, Bayer Leverkusen, Eintracht Frankfurt, RB Leipzig and Borussia Dortmund were mentioned as interested clubs, but apparently they have not yet reported sufficiently concretely in Vienna in January. However, the playing minutes at Rapid Wien will have to wait a little longer for the time being. Before his departure to Barcelona, he was hardly a basic player under Dietmar Kühbauer, something for which the now departed trainer received the necessary criticism. But his successor Ferdinand Feldhofer warned last week that Demir is not yet ready for a base place at Rapid Wien. “We have to be patient, I think he needs weeks to get to the level he had last summer,” Feldhofer said. LAOLA1† “We know what he has in him, we can enjoy that a lot. It gets better every day, he goes to the limit in training. But I am also aware that he has to be fully fit to play with us.”
Demir’s last official game for Barcelona was on December 8, when he played four minutes as a substitute in the Champions League game against Bayern Munich.
It is suggested in Austria that Demir has lost quite a bit of fitness to Barcelona, leaving Feldhofer only able to use him as a substitute in the games against TSV Hartberg (35 minutes) and Red Bull Salzburg (5 minutes). “In some ways they haven’t worked that hard at Barcelona. That may sound provocative, but it is true. We therefore have to bring him back into the team step by step. He has the talent, the ambition and the will,” said Zoran Barisic, sporting director at Rapid Wien. “We know he has talent. But he still has a lot of work to do, especially physically. Maybe he matured a bit in Barcelona.”
The harsh statements about fitness subsequently provoked a reaction from Demir’s agent Emre Öztürk. †Yusi had to hurry, because he had missed part of the preparation for the second half of the season due to the transfer. He succeeded, he is back in top shape and has adapted to the Rapid system. Yusi can make all the difference against Vitesse,” assured Demir’s representative. It remains to be seen whether Demir will actually have a basic place against Vitesse. Sporting director Barisic believes that Öztürk’s statements only increase the pressure around Demir, while trainer Feldhofer only wanted to say that he would be there. ‘Deployable’, is all the Rapid Wien trainer wanted to say about it.