Exactly two months to the day since his last appearance, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has made his debut for Barcelona.
The 32-year-old had not played previously since coming on as a substitute during Arsenal's 2-1 defeat to Everton where he missed a golden opportunity with the last kick of the game, that would also turn out to be his final kick in a Gunners shirt.
After that the Gabon international was stripped of the club captaincy and exiled from first-team training by Mikel Arteta due to disciplinary breaches, and finally secured a move away from the Emirates after terminating his contract in North London in order to facilitate a free transfer to La Blaugrana.
And during Barca's La Liga clash with Atletico Madird, Aubameyang was brought on for his first ever appearance at the Nou Camp, although things did not quite go according to plan after that.
The former Dortmund forward had watched on from the bench for the first hour of the match alongside his good freind Ousmane Dembele, and had spent the half-time break warming up with Barca youngster Nico Gonzalez.
It is his ability to work well with young players, demonstrated in his time with Arsenal when playing alongside the likes of Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe and Gabriel Martinelli, that appears to have made him such a good fit for La Blaugrana, who themselves are relying heavily on 17-year-old Gavi and 19-year-old Pedri as they seek to get back to the top of the game.
Manager Xavi Hernandez eventually introduced him just over 60 minutes in to come on in place of fellow debutant and former Tottenham target Adama Traore.
At the time Barca were winning their crucial six-pointer for Champions League qualification 4-2 and appeared to be comfortably on course to a win that would propel them above Atleti into the top four, despite the fact that Luis Suarez had just pulled one back.
Things almost got off to the dream start for Aubameyang, who was immediately targeted with a ball over the top by Gavi that was misjudged by Jose Gimenez. However, before the 32-year-old could get on the end of it Jan Oblak was quickly off his line to smother.
Not long after that though, the landscape of the game changed entirely.
Dani Alves went in for what initially appeared to be an innocuous challenge with Yannick Carrasco, however, after the Belgian went down in some agony it became clear that Alves had stamped on the back of his calf.
VAR intervened and sent referee Gil Manzano over to the pitchside monitor to review the incident and he promptly dismissed the 38-year-old right-back.
Playing in a side with 10 men is not exactly something new to Aubameyang. Since Mikel Arteta took over at Arsenal in 2019 his side have had more red cards (13) than any other side in the Premier League, and the Gabonese forward was in the Gunners team that played the majority of its 5-0 defeat to Manchester City in August a man light after Granit Xhaka's dismissal.
He would have been expecting to spend much of the game looking to pick off Diego Simeone's side on the counter, but instead his job was now to try and hold the ball up give the Barca defence some respite.
This is not necessarily seen as one of his strong points but Aubameyang showed some good centre-forward instincts, winning three aerial duels (according to WhoScored).
One occasion in particular just before the 80-minute mark was impressive as he flicked the ball through to Ferran Torres to run through on goal.
The former Manchester City forward was then hauled to the ground by Daniel Wass, but the referee chose not to give a foul, prompting a furious reaction from the Barca bench and another red card, this time for Xavi's assistant coach and brother Oscar Hernandez.
Aubameyang did continue to show some of the world class movement that made him such a threat at Arsenal during his time in North London, and was nearly picked out with a ball over the top by Frenkie de Jong.
However, it was ultimately a frustrating afternoon for the 32-year-old, who could not get the debut goal that he would have wanted to kickstart his new career at the Nou Camp.
He ended the game with a pass success rate of just 71.4% - the lowest of any player in the Barca team.
This though was more due to the circumstances of the game than any real fault on Aubameyang's part, and he'll be hoping to make more of an impact when Barca travel to Espanyol for the Catalan derby next Sunday.
