FCBARCELONA.CAT

04.09.2007 11:50

18 former Barça stars in 11 teams

Sergi Nogueras

At the start of the 2007-08 Spanish league season there will be no less than 18 former FC Barcelona players playing for 11 different teams in la Primera.

The Blaugrana will see former first team stars playing for over half the top flight sides with Atlético de Madrid, Real Madrid, Real Betis, Deportivo, Getafe, Real Zaragoza, Villarreal, Recreativo, Mallorca, Espanyol and Murcia all having ex-Barça players in their ranks.

Atlético complete hat-trick

Atlético have the most former Barça players with three in their squad. The last to join los Colchoneros was Thiago Motta, who switched clubs on transfer deadline day last week. He will join two other summer recruitments that used to ply their trade at Camp Nou after Luís García moved from Liverpool and Simão came signed from Benfica.

Murcia back with Jofre and Cuadrado

Real Murcia have two former players as they look forward to their first season back in the elite since 2003-04 with Iban Cuadrado and Jofre Mateu among the numbers. Cuadrado left FC Barcelona in the sumer of 2001, while Jofre has gone on to play for Levante and Espanyol, before moving to Murcia since the end of last term.

Depor, Betis, Espanyol and Zaragoza, also

Depor, Betis, Espanyol and Real Zaragoza also have former Barça players. At Depor are Joan Verdü and Cristian, Betis have Damià, Espanyol's squad includes Ivan De la Peña and Rufete and Zaragoza have Albert Celades and Sergio García.

Five more

Javier Saviola is playing for Real Madrid, Mario is with Michael Laudrup and Getafe, Juan Román Riquelme is at Villarreal, Víctor Muñoz has Quique Alvarez and Gerard at Recreativo and Fernando Navarro is with Mallorca.

As well as these former first-teamers, there are also a number of players that plied their trade with Barça's youth teams and left before making the step up. These include Miguel Ángel at Betis, Moha at Espanyol, Daniel Güiza at Mallorca, Miguel Martínez at Zaragoza, Jord i López and Óscar Serrano at Racing , Sergio at Deportivo and Diego Capel at Sevilla.