“Barcelona gave up on signing me because I was ugly”, says ex-Shakhtar man

There, the Russian became one of the main references of the modest Spanish club. There were seven seasons, with 221 games and seven goals scored. In the country, he also played for Rayo Vallecano for a season. Onopko came to be in the sights of clubs like Atlético de Madrid and Barcelona.

Despite this, he recently revealed that he only didn’t sign a deal with Barça for a very unusual reason. “I recently found out that Barcelona wanted to sign me. But Johan Cruyff or one of his assistants said I was ugly and that’s why they didn’t sign me,” he said in an interview with the podcast “The Mustache of Abbey”.

Onopko never wore the Blaugrana club’s shirt, but faced Barcelona. He even won at the Camp Nou wearing the Oviedo shirt. The triumph took place in May 2001, when Radomir Antic was in charge of the team he played for.

“That day, Rado paid us the bonus for the victory from his own pocket. He said before the match that he would do it and he kept his word”, said the former player about the Serbian coach.

In addition to standing out in Spanish football, Onopko was a constant presence in the Russian national team, with a total of 109 call-ups. He played in the 1994 and 2002 World Cups. He also commented on his participation in the World Cup held in South Korea and Japan.

“Physically we didn’t arrive well. I don’t know why. Our Federation and the entire technical team worked well. We even took our cook and our families there, but physically we weren’t well”, he said, recalling a disappointing campaign in which Russia fell in the group stage.