10 things to know about Dani Olmo

Dani Olmo returns home as Barça’s new signing is back at the Club almost 10 years to the day since he left FC Barcelona. We take a look at ten things you should know about the new blaugrana arrival.

1) Dani Olmo was born on 7 March 1998, a time when Louis Van Gaal was Barça coach, in the Catalan town of Terrassa, also the birthplace of fellow blaugranes Xavi Hernández, Víctor Sánchez and Mika Mármol. The only other current blaugrana born in 1998 is French defender Jules Kounde.

2) The player’s father, Miquel Olmo, is a former player and coach who was in charge at Catalan clubs Girona (2009) and Sabadell (2013/14) in the Spanish Second Division.

3) Dani Olmo first joined Barça back in the summer of 2008, joining the U12B squad. The versatile midfielder moved through the age categories before leaving for Croatian club Dinamo Zagreb in the 2014.

4) During his time with the youth teams Olmo played alongside the likes of Carles Aleña, Carles Pérez and Marc Cucurella, with whom he claimed the Euro 2024 title with Spain earlier in the summer.

5) In his 10 years away from Barça, Olmo has played at Dinamo Zagreb from 2014 to 2020 and at RB Leipzig from 2020 until 2024.

6) Olmo won trophies with both clubs. In Croatia he won five league titles, three cups and one Super Cup. In Germany with Leipzig he claimed three more: two German Cups and a Super Cup. On an international level he won a European U21 Championships with Spain in 2020, a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, a Nations League title in 2023 and the recent Euro 2024 title.

7) Dani Olmo has admitted that he was offered the chance to become a Croatian citizen with an eye on representing the national team at the 2018 World Cup in Russia as at that point he was yet to make his debut for Spain.

8) After returning to Barça, Olmo joins a list of players who have left the Club only to return later: Gerard López, Luis García, Gerard Piqué, Cesc Fàbregas, Jordi Alba, Aleix Vidal, Denis Suárez, Gerard Deulofeu, Eric Garcia, Adama Traoré, Héctor Bellerín and Oriol Romeu.

9) Dani Olmo during his career has played alongside some well knowns faces in European Football. In Croatia he had Livakovic and Petkovic as team mates and at Leipzig the likes of Upamecano, Sabitzer, Nkunku, Timo Werner, Schick, Sorloth, Gvardiol, Szoboszlai and Xavi Simons.

10) As well as experience in Croatia, Olmo has strong links to Germany. At Leipzig he had German coach Julian Nagelsmann and Marco Rose and it was in Germany where he was recently crowned European Champion with the Spanish national side. At Barça he will have the chance to continue to use his fluent German with coach Hansi Flick and German internationals Marc-André ter Stegen and Ilkay Gündogan.