Why Marc-Andre ter Stegen Needs to Leave Barcelona for the Good of His Career

Patience is indeed a virtue, and it’s also said that good things come to those who wait, but the best thing about cliches and catchphrases is that you can find one to suit almost any situation.

And Marc-Andre ter Stegen’s situation at Barcelona right now is a clear one.

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In two seasons in Catalonia, the German goalkeeper has played 41 times. He’s lifted the UEFA Champions League trophy, the Copa del Rey, the UEFA Super Cup and Club World Cup.

The 23-year-old has had a view from the opposite side of the pitch as Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar have combined to form the greatest attacking trio world football has ever seen.

But when the latest El Clasico rolls around on Saturday evening, Ter Stegen will be doing exactly the same as millions around the world will be doing—watching.

Just three of those 41 Barca appearances have come in La Liga, where Ter Stegen has been forced to sit on the bench and watch the consistent displays of the Chilean Claudio Bravo, who at 32 years old is surely playing the best football of his career.

If he played in pretty much any other position, Ter Stegen could afford to wait for time to catch up with Bravo, but the Chilean has another two or three years as Barca’s “Liga goalkeeper” ahead of him, by which point the German faces the possibility of going stale.

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Of course playing for a club like Barcelona means that you can be guaranteed to play in several cup games a season given their likely progress in both the Champions League and Copa del Rey—both of which it would be no surprise to see them win this season.

But the continual demotion for Liga games is bound to leave its mark on a goalkeeper who didn’t really impress when he was thrust in for league games earlier this season as Bravo recovered from injury. Part of that might have been down to the pressure he was feeling.

Ter Stegen will also be sitting and watching at the UEFA European Championship in the summer, when he’ll have Manuel Neuer ahead of him in the Germany pecking order.

It could be that—more than anything—which convinces him that he needs to move on to become an undisputed No. 1 goalkeeper somewhere else. Obviously he’s not going to surpass Neuer any time soon, but jealousy can be a great motivator.

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And as reported by Lluis Miguelsanz in Sport, Ter Stegen is putting serious thought into leaving the Camp Nou in order to play more football somewhere else.

Anywhere he goes will offer less grandeur, but it should provide the opportunity to start more matches than he doesn’t. And that, ultimately, is what professional football should be about at any level.

Manchester City and Liverpool are the names most strongly linked to the former Borussia Monchengladbach stopper, and the riches of the Premier League would perhaps go some way to compensating for the blow of leaving Barca, with Miguelsanz spelling things out succinctly in his article:

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Ter Stegen signed for Barcelona thinking he would be first choice, but ended up accepting his cup roles because of his youth.

Now he thinks his adaption has finished and his moment has arrived.

The choice is whether to stay and fight for minutes in the best team in the world or start for a Premier League work in progress.

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Which choice would you make? To anyone with the slightest ounce of personal motivation, then you have to attempt to achieve the former, but in the end it probably has to be the latter.

As for those Premier League “works in progress,” then City would offer the greatest possibility of short-term success, but it would be a little puzzling if incoming manager Pep Guardiola had already written off the club’s long-term No. 1, Joe Hart, a fine goalkeeper who has plenty more years ahead of him.

Liverpool, though, would seem to fit.

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Sure, the Reds aren’t what they were and probably won’t be in the Champions League next season, but Jurgen Klopp—Ter Stegen’s compatriot—has instilled a sense of optimism at Anfield, and it would appear that other German stars want to get in on that.

Simon Mignolet’s position as the Reds’ No. 1 goalkeeper has been as shaky as his handling for some time, and should Ter Stegen arrive he would do so to the acclaim of fans and with the undisputed knowledge that he would be the club’s new first-choice stopper.

The transfer movements of the charismatic Klopp look to be one of the most intriguing elements of the summer, and there’s something about the image of him and Ter Stegen standing side-by-side at an introductory press conference which seems to fit.

All of that can wait, though, as the goalkeeper faces a tough decision for which a slightly altered cliche might be apt.

Will he take two steps back in order to make one step forward?