Just about to turn 23, Yerry Mina left Palmeiras to fulfill his dream of playing in Europe wearing the FC Barcelona shirt. The Catalan club paid just over €12 million for the Colombian center-back, who had chosen Barça over other offers—even from Real Madrid. “Madrid was also there, but I wanted to go to Barcelona,” he confessed in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport.

What he didn’t imagine was how difficult the road in Catalonia would be. “I arrived and Valverde only spoke to me on the first day. For seven months he didn’t say a single word to me,” Mina revealed. In that time, he only played six official matches, despite the team winning both La Liga and the Copa del Rey. To make matters worse, he suffered a foot injury after a challenge from Ivan Rakitic during training, which further complicated his adaptation.

An Inevitable Departure

Although Barça fans held him in high regard, Mina knew he needed minutes and continuity. His exit was only a matter of time, though it also turned out to be a profitable deal for the club: in less than a year, Barcelona sold him to Everton for €30 million, nearly triple what they had paid. “I wanted to leave Barcelona, even though the fans adored me. But I wanted to play,” he explained.

At that point, José Mourinho tried to take him to Manchester United, but the Colombian wasn’t fully recovered. In the end, Marco Silva convinced him to sign with Everton, where he spent five seasons and was even coached by Carlo Ancelotti. “The Premier League is beautiful,” Mina recalled, though he admitted that a wave of injuries among teammates slowed down the project.

Persistence and Motivation

Today, Mina plays for Cagliari in Serie A and insists that everything he went through made him stronger. “I went to many trials and got rejected: ‘You’re too skinny, you’re not good.’ But I persisted. One day, my uncle told me: ‘Go to Deportivo Pesto.’ And thank God, I made it. My motivation was always to help my family.”