When Cucurella said he would rather shave his head than sign for Madrid

BarcelonaA little less than four months ago, when the debate on the left flank of Real Madrid was already settled due to the poor performances of Álvaro Carreras and Fran García, added to the injuries of Ferland Mendy, a journalist posed this challenge to Marc Cucurella during a Spanish national team call-up. "Would you shave your head if Spain won the World Cup?" asked the journalist. "No, my hair is sacred," replied the then-Chelsea player at the end of March. "And if you had to choose between cutting your hair or playing for Real Madrid?" they pressed. "Then I would shave my head," Cucurella resolved, smiling.

It was already an open secret that the Alella-born full-back could leave the London club when the summer transfer window arrived. Although the footballer had been comfortably settled in London for years, his situation at the Blues – he is one of their captains – has changed in recent months, especially since January. At that time, the English club sacked coach Enzo Maresca, with whom Cucurella had a good relationship. The team's situation, under the direction of Liam Rosenior – who was the coach of Strasbourg, part of the same sporting conglomerate as Chelsea – did not improve either and, in fact, he would also end up being dismissed to make way for Xabi Alonso's arrival.

The Londoners finished the season outside the Champions League. With the policy of buying and selling young players that has prevailed under the ownership of American magnate Todd Boehly since 2022, the team has lacked stability for a long time. Cucurella himself questioned this transfer policy a few months ago in an interview with The Athletic. In fact, despite being only 27 years old, he was among the most experienced players in a dressing room that undergoes many changes every year.

Cucurella and his family –he is married to the influencer Claudia Rodríguez and they have three children, Mateo, Ría and Bella, born in 2019, 2021 and 2023– were eager to return to Spanish territory, and although Barça made its interest in knowing the player's intentions clear a few months ago, Real Madrid is the one who has made the first move, as in the case of Bernardo Silva. In exchange for a figure close to 60 million euros, the defender is tied to the Madrid club for six seasons, until 2032. It hasn't even been a year since Real Madrid, at the request of Xabi Alonso, signed full-back Álvaro Carreras from Benfica for 50 million euros.

Cucurella's wife, seeing the avalanche of criticism the footballer is receiving on social media for having signed for Real Madrid despite his past at Barça, has shared an image on Instagram where she appears as a child dressed in the white team's kit and the phrase: "I'm exploding with pride and happiness, let the adventure begin". The influencer, in addition to being a fashion designer and ballet dancer, trusts to see her followers and her influence grow by transferring her sphere of social action and event promotion by changing the English capital for the Spanish one.

Barça never bet enough on Marc Cucurella

At Barça, Ernesto Valverde never trusted him enough as a replacement for Jordi Alba – who never tolerated competition much – and they opted for Juan Miranda, who also ended up packing his bags. From the sporting direction of that time, they also didn't fight for him enough, neither when he went on loan to Eibar in 2018 – the Basques would sign him at the end of that season exercising a purchase option of 2 million euros – nor when he had the option to return and continued his path to Getafe before making the leap to England, where he stood out at Brighton.

In the summer of 2022, Pep Guardiola wanted to sign him, but City was not willing to match the more than 65 million that Chelsea paid for him. Now Cucurella is definitively moving away from Barça by signing for Real Madrid under José Mourinho and Florentino Pérez.