I was meant to be Chelsea's 'new Makelele' - now I'm a free agent with no trophy in thirteen years

Plenty of players find themselves without a club when they turn 33 – but few are Champions League winners with well over 200 Premier League appearances and a clean fitness record to their name. Then again, Oriel Romeu might well decide to take a break and read a book instead of extending his career.

Romeu won La Liga with Barcelona in 2010/11, was an unused substitute during Chelsea’s 2011/12 Champions League final win over Bayern Munich, and went on to make over 250 appearances for Southampton before joining Girona and then, surprisingly, returning to Barcelona at the age of 31 ahead of the 2023/24 campaign. Now, however, a quietly impressive career played at the highest level has reached a dead end.

Released by Barcelona by mutual consent in July as part of the Catalan club’s ongoing battle with Spanish football’s financial regulations, Romeu could still extend his career – but how did he end up here, after such a strange career, and why did sharing a dressing room with Juan Mata change his life? And what options does the former Chelsea man have left?

What happened to Oriel Romeu – and why is he still a free agent?

When Romeu first signed for Chelsea in 2011, there was a fair amount of fanfare for a young defensive midfielder only sold by Barcelona because they already had Sergio Busquets and Javier Mascherano on the books. They didn’t need another holding midfielder, no matter how much potential they had. Chelsea did.

Described in glowing terms by The Daily Mail as Chelsea’s “new Makelele” when he first arrived, Romeu started strong at Stamford Bridge but was never able to establish himself as a regular starter and eventually made just 33 appearances for the club before being shipped out on loan to Valencia and VfB Stuttgart.

By the time he was sold to Southampton in 2015 for £5m, Romeu was starting to look like something of a busted flush, but his work ethic kept him going for eight seasons at St. Mary’s, all of them in the Premier League, before he moved back to Spain, first with Girona and then, rather poetically, back to Barcelona, where he played 37 matches in the 2023/24 season.

His career had come full circle and at the age of 32, he had proven himself worthy of a place at the very top table. But Barcelona, always on the lookout for a flashy new toy regardless of their ceaselessly precarious financial position, loaned him back to Girona before agreeing to release him in order to be able to register new signings this summer.

Now, Romeu, 489 senior games into his career, suddenly finds himself at an impasse. Real Betis and Valencia were linked with him, while Girona were supposedly interested in bringing him back once more, but all three teams ended up signing other players. Saudi Pro League side Al-Shabab have made an offer, according to Marca, but also seem to have other irons in the fire.

As a free agent, Romeu isn’t bound by transfer windows and can sign for a new club at any point, and it’s challenging to imagine that there isn’t a team who would take him on somewhere in the world given that he’s had a career largely unimpeded by serious injury and has been playing consistently well at a high level for over a decade. But even if that doesn’t turn out to be the case, one gets the impression that Romeu will take it in his stride – he is, after all, something of a footballer-philosopher who knows more about stoicism than most.

How Juan Mata and Marcus Aurelius changed Romeu’s life

Not too many footballers, Hector Bellerin aside, seem to spend their spare time with their nose in a book, but Romeu is a devoted reader with a keen interest in philosophy and psychology – something which has, perhaps, helped him to handle a long career which looked set for the rocks at one or two points.

While at Southampton – shortly after their infamous 9-0 defeat at the hands of Leicester City – Romeu made the unusual decision to his ask his manager to send him to train with the reserves, believing it would help him physically and mentally at the time. It might have been an idea he picked up from the stoics.

In a 2022 interview with El Periódico, Romeu said that Chelsea team-mate Juan Mata had “changed his life” by introducing him to the joys of reading. Starting at the deep end with Haruki Murakami’s Tokyo Blues, Romeu soon got hooked on ancient philosophy, most notably stoic thinkers such as Seneca and the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.

Also noted as a fan of modern Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi, Romeu doesn’t fit the stereotype of a flash footballer – when speaking to another Spanish newspaper, El País, his interviewer noted that he was wearing a €20 Casio watch rather than, say, a Rolex. Mata had an influence there, too.

Shortly after signing for Chelsea, Romeu went on a spending spree to get the clothes he thought befitted a Premier League footballer. As soon as Mata saw him dressed up his fancy threads, he supposedly said "What are you doing dressed like that? It doesn't suit you."

Romeu seems to have taken the hint and leads a life free from the usual ostentatious displays of wealth often associated with modern footballers – not that Mata’s suggestion to lead a less fashion-forward life prevented Romeu from a determination to periodically return to one of European football’s worst mohawks.

The impression is of a footballer probably better prepared emotionally for the end of his career than most, and who has won enough and achieved enough to move forward without much in the way of regret. Still, it would be very surprising if there wasn’t a team somewhere who wouldn’t value having Romeu around. Few players at the top level have been so consistent for so long.