Adama Traore reveals bitter Barcelona exits ahead of Aston Villa's Champions League trip

Adama Traore has lifted the lid on two acrimonious exits from Barcelona, with the former Aston Villa winger revealing he was never given an explanation for being frozen out of the club — a story that resurfaces as Villa travel to the Camp Nou in the Champions League.

Traore joined Villa in August 2015 for £7 million after impressing for Barcelona B, becoming the first player to move directly between the two clubs. He was 19 at the time, and Villa manager Tim Sherwood was effusive about the signing. “He is a big powerful boy, very quick, dynamic, and a maverick type of player,” Sherwood said. “You never know what’s going to come out next. Those players are very few and far between.”

But Traore’s departure from Barcelona had left a sour taste. Speaking to Mundo Deportivo in 2016, he recalled being excluded from pre-season without any communication from then-manager Luis Enrique. “I didn’t leave Barca on good terms,” he said. “I left, honestly, because they didn’t give me the opportunity. They didn’t even tell me why. Nobody spoke to me. I would have liked someone to give me an explanation, at least to tell me the reasons, because they didn’t even take me to do preseason training last summer. I left with a bittersweet feeling.”

His time at Villa Park was brief and unhappy. The club were relegated at the end of the 2015-16 season, and Traore managed just 12 appearances before moving on. He rebuilt his reputation at Middlesbrough and then Wolves, where his explosive performances earned him a surprise loan return to Barcelona in January 2022.

That second chapter proved equally frustrating. Traore had arrived to cover for the injured Ousmane Dembele, but a managerial shift under Xavi altered his prospects. “I have a thorn in my side. Perhaps a bad taste in my mouth because any Barca youth player wants to stay,” he told Cadena Ser in 2024. “I knew I was going on loan and the club’s situation, and my intention was to help as much as possible. It’s true that halfway through my loan there was a change, more personal, due to the manager. I came to fill Dembele’s position. It was my turn to have that position, and Xavi kept it. These are learning stages.”

A permanent deal never materialised, leaving Traore with unfinished business at the club where he grew up. Now, as Aston Villa prepare to face Barcelona in the Champions League, his story serves as an unusual thread connecting the two sides — one built on exits he never fully understood.