Saras, the player that took the longest to return to Barça

BASKETBALL

Jasikevicius returns to Barcelona nine years after he left for Maccabi Tel Aviv, thus becoming the player that took the longest to come back to the Palau Blaugrana after his initial stint as an Azulgrana

Up until now it was Zoran Savic, with an eight year hiatus, that spent the most time away from Barça Regal before returning. Followed by Ferran Martínez, who was away for four years

Sarunas Jasikevicius

Barça were made to wait nine years for Saras’ return, which, by the way, is a new record. Jasikevicius is the player that took the longest to return to the Palau Blaugrana, where he claimed an impressive trophy haul in 2000 and 2003. Jasikevicius’ return has turned the Lithuanian’s story into a peculiar, but not unique case.

Up until now it was Zoran Savic that had taken the longest to return to Barcelona after his first stint with the Azulgranas (eight years). The Serbian played for Barça from 1991 to 1993 and, after taking his talent elsewhere, he returned to Barcelona in the 2000/01 season.

Martínez, Karnisovas, Crespo and Esteller

The next player on the list is Ferran Martínez, who, at the start of the 90s, spent four years at Joventut in between his two FC Barcelona stints. Xavi Crespo and Roger Esteller, two players formed in the Barça youth system, spent three years away from the Azulgrana Club before returning, the same goes for the Lithuanian Arturas Karnisovas.

Not every player took so long to return, of course. Sada and Soler, for example, only took two years to come back to Barça and Navarro, Alzamora, Bravo, Jiménez, Junyent, Dedovic, Marcos and Rabaseda, were only away for a year.