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Croatia’s number one goalkeeper Dominik Livaković has put pen to paper on a four-year contract with Spanish champions Barcelona, the Catalan club confirmed on Thursday. Livaković arrives at Barcelona as a Fenerbahçe player, having spent the second half of last season on loan at Dinamo Zagreb. The deal runs through the end of the 2029/30 season, with Fenerbahçe set to receive a fixed fee of two million euros, plus the possibility of a further two million euros in add-ons. Announcing the signing, Barcelona posted a photo of the Croatian keeper with the message: “Ready when needed.” What’s still unclear is exactly how Livaković’s first season in Catalonia will play out. According to reporting from Fabrizio Romano, picked up by outlets worldwide, Barcelona had initially planned to sign Livaković as a long-term option without immediately bringing him into the first-team squad, with the idea being that he’d spend the 2026/27 season out on loan, most likely back at Fenerbahçe, before moving to Camp Nou for good in June 2027 to become primary backup to number one Joan García, once Wojciech Szczęsny’s contract expires. However, a well-connected Barcelona radio programme on Cadena SER has since suggested that plan may have changed, with the club reportedly now leaning toward keeping him with the squad immediately. Asked about his immediate future upon arriving in Catalonia, Livaković kept it brief: “We’ll see.” Barcelona used the unveiling to look back on his career path, coming through the youth ranks at Zadar and Zagreb, breaking into NK Zagreb’s first team in 2012/13, before moving to Dinamo Zagreb in the summer of 2016. Over seven seasons in Zagreb, he established himself as one of the side’s most important players, making 295 appearances, conceding 249 goals and keeping 137 clean sheets, while winning seven Croatian league titles among other honors. Those performances earned him a move to Fenerbahçe in the summer of 2023. Livaković has been a regular for Croatia’s national team since 2017, with his biggest moment on the world stage coming at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where his heroics in the penalty shootouts against Japan and Brazil helped Croatia to a bronze medal. Four years earlier, he was part of the squad that won silver in Russia. He has featured at the last three World Cups — 2018, 2022 and 2026 — as well as the European Championships in 2021 and 2024. The move to Barcelona represents the biggest club transfer of his career. The only question now is whether he’ll be fighting for minutes between the posts straight away, or whether another loan spell awaits before his chance at Camp Nou arrives.