Faster than Usain Bolt, troublemaker with major disciplinary problems, curious African with extreme consumption… these are just some of the terms that have been attached to the new Barcelona striker - who promised his grandfather to play for Real Madrid.

When Arsenal won the FA Cup in August 2020 with 2-1 over Chelsea, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang became double goal scorer, man of the match and the great hero, as he as captain had to lift the trophy for "The Gunners". Shortly afterwards, he posted a picture on social media with manager Mikel Arteta with the words "My Coach".

A month later he was rewarded with an even better contract, but 16 months later he was frozen out of the club and almost forced into a switch and huge pay cut by taking to financially needy FC Barcelona. What happened during this period?

During those 16 months, Aubameyang went from being the superhero at Arsenal to a big villain after a sea of ​​bad decisions. First, a decline in form hit and the young Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe seemed stronger in the Arsenal offensive. In addition, they appeared to be more ambitious and hungry than the contract signing Aubameyang. It was accompanied by a long break due to the death of the African's mother that Aubameyang was no longer the first to be written on the Arsenal team card and during the many trips to his native Gabon he was also infected with malaria, which weakened him very physically.

Subsequently, he was put off by the team for the rival showdown against Tottenham, after he had once again come too late, but he also posted a lot of pictures on social media where he was tattooed, while this due to Covid-19 was illegal in England. In addition, he stayed away from several Covid-19 tests at Arsenal. So overall a lot of trouble, which eventually became too much for manager Mikel Arteta and the Spanish manager sent him early to the Africa Cup of Nations. From here the messages were that Aubameyang had heart problems and therefore could not play, but Arteta did not want him to return to Arsenal and therefore he ended up in Barcelona.

But these examples are far from the only times that Aubameyang has been in the headlines. He has e.g. experienced the inhumanity of burning a crucial penalty kick in a London derby between Arsenal and Tottenham, and it was even in overtime. But in the ensuing matches, the African striker showed that he is created by something very special, for shortly after Arsenal got another penalty kick against some rivals - namely Manchester United, and Aubameyang did not hesitate to go to the ball and score to 2- 0.

Four days later, Arsenal were once again under pressure as Rennes were ahead 3-1 before the return match in London. Once again, Aubameyang struck with two goals and an assist in the 3-0 victory, but that he was decisive in the match was almost in the cards before arriving at Arsenal. He scored 141 goals in 212 games in Dortmund from his arrival in 2013, until in the last hours of the January transfer window in 2018 he was a record acquisition by Arsenal, but who else is this African striker?

Aubameyang's football adventure began in 1995, when he first stepped on the turf of the small French club ASL L'Huisserie Football, where he embarked on his football career. After that, the trip went to OGC Nice, Stade Lavallois, FC Rouen and SC Bastia, before his career as a junior player really took off. Aubameyang joined AC Milan's youth ranks in January 2007.

In August 2007, he was part of the team that won a nice fourth place in the so-called Champions Youth Cup, which was held in Malaysia. Here, Aubameyang delivered such solid performances that he attracted international attention. He thus scored against every single opponent that AC Milan met on the turf, and it turned into seven goals in six games.

The African's first season as a professional footballer was the 2008/09 season, when he was loaned out to Dijon FCO. The idea was that Aubameyang should get first team experience, which he certainly got. He thus played 34 league games, in which it turned into eight goals and two assists. The then 18-year-old Aubameyang was further mentioned in the magazine World Soccer's talent section.

The season in Dijon as a tenant became a success for Aubameyang. He was then loaned out to Lille OSC and AS Monaco, where he did not experience the same success. After six months in Monaco, Aubameyang was loaned out to Saint-Etienne, where he again experienced great success.

The success of Saint-Etienne was even so great that in December 2011 the Ligue1 club picked up Aubameyang on a permanent deal. He scored his first hat-trick for the club two months later and actually ended up as the Ligue1 top scorer that season. The 2012/13 season is described as Aubameyang's breakthrough season. Although he won "only" a second place on the top scorer list in Ligue1, in return he was named African Player of the Year.

Aubameyang was presented in Dortmund on July 4, 2013. Here, however, he came under the shadow of Robert Lewandowski in the Dortmund attack, which was reflected in the Bundesliga's top scorer list for the 2013/14 season, where Aubameyang finished under both Lewandowski and Marco Reus.

Lewandowski joined Bayern Munich before the 2014/15 season was kicked off. Aubameyang's second season in the Dortmund jersey featured 16 goals, giving him the role of Dortmund top scorer. However, the 16 goals were not enough to secure him the top scorer title in the Bundesliga, but fourth place on the top scorer list meant that he was approaching. The 2015/16 season featured 25 goals in the 34 games of the season, but that was only enough for second place on the top scorer list as Lewandowski scored 30 goals in the Bayern Munich jersey.

One could argue that the 2016/17 season was the best season ever for Aubameyang. He won the top scorer title for the nose of Lewandowski, who for the second season in a row scored as many as 30 goals in 34 games. Aubameyang had scored 29 goals this season before the very last round of play began. Here, Werder Bremen were visiting Dortmund, which ended with a 4-3 victory for the hosts. Dortmund's superhero found his way to the net twice in the very last match, while Lewandowski failed to find his way to the net in Bayern Munich's 4-1 win over Augsburg, and before switching to Arsenal the striker had scored 13 goals for Dortmund while struggling. a little more on the national team.

Aubameyang was invited to play for Italy's U19 national team when he had completed the successful season as a tenant in Dijon, but the French - born striker with roots in Gabon chose the French U21 national team, for which he made his debut in February 2009.

In March In 2009, however, Aubameyang was selected to the Gabonese national team, which he has since represented. Gabon hosted the African Cup of Nations in 2017, which, however, resulted in neither a victory nor a final place. In return, Aubameyang is the all-time top scorer on the Gabonese national team. Enough talk - now more about "The bad boy" .

Superheroes Aubameyang

Halloween was just around the corner in October 2012, when Aubameyang apparently took an advance on the joys. He had just scored the first goal of the match between Saint-Etienne and Stade Rennais when he ran around behind the goal and found a bag. Out of the bag, he took a Spiderman mask, which he put on to celebrate his scoring. However, Aubameyang was not the first player in the world to celebrate a score that way. Former Newcastle midfielder Jonas Gutierrez had a Spiderman mask tucked into his shorts, which emerged when he scored against Barnsley in 2010. However, it was far from the last time Aubameyang wore a mask on the turf.

Aubameyang once again stole the spotlight with a mask when he ended up in Dortmund and they faced Bayern Munich in the DFL Super Cup in 2014. Henrikh Mkhitaryan put Dortmund ahead after 23 minutes of play, before Aubameyang also came on the scoreboard after just over an hour of play . He then found a Spiderman mask in one sock, which he put on his head in front of the nearly 80,000 spectators at Signal Iduna Park.

Spiderman was replaced by Batman in the so-called Ruhr derby between Dortmund and Schalke in February 2015. Aubameyang put BVB ahead after 78 minutes of play, after which he wore a Batman mask on his head, while his teammate Marco Reus followed suit and also took a mask on - a Robin mask.

Aubameyang wore a mask on the turf for the fourth time in his career when Schalke took on Dortmund for another Ruhr derby. Aubameyang put Dortmund ahead in the second half, which made him put on another mask, but there were owls in the bog this time. It was thus a special mask, which was a connection to the so-called Nike campaign "The Masked Finisher". Aubameyang was personally sponsored by Nike, while Dortmund got their playing suits from Puma, who are also shareholders in the Bundesliga club. This controversy made Dortmund director Hans-Joachim Watzke speak with big words:

- This behavior is unworthy of such a large company. It can not fit that we have to fight for Nike and their financial interests in this way. Our partner is Puma, said Hans-Joachim Watzke to the German media Bild.

The then Dortmund coach Thomas Tuchel was also surprised by his striker's behavior. However, he was not surprised that his striker once again wore a mask when celebrating his scoring, but rather over the controversial mask, which was conclusive proof that Aubameyang had joined a Nike campaign wearing a Puma player jersey.

- We had expected a sequel to the Batman / Spiderman jubilation scene, but that was not the case, which makes the whole thing a little more difficult, it sounded from Thomas Tuchel.

"No Auba - No Party"

The latter mask escapade resulted in Aubameyang being fined around DKK 375,000, but this is far from the only time there has been trouble with Aubameyang. The attacker has been attached to "No Auba - No Party", as he is a bit of a party monkey with fast cars, special hair splendor, lack of discipline and extremely expensive designer clothes, which he produces himself. Among other things, he has made the clothing series "PEA17" and the baseball cap brand "New Era", which came in the Dortmund colors black and yellow - maybe in the future it should have other colors?

The clothes were one of the problems for Aubameyang in Dortmund, as the workers' club fans do not only recognize the way of life of the Gabonese striker. The weekly salary of around 1.5 million kroner in Dortmund has been spent on many crazy things, such as when he showed up to battle with a pair of green Nike shoes with 4,000 small Swarkoski crystals on for a total price of over 25,000 kroner.

This came at the same time as he told reporters that he wanted to switch to Real Madrid or PSG, which the very loyal Dortmund fans had a hard time accepting. In addition, he has repeatedly been absent from training - among other things to participate in a commercial for Red Bull, and he was also excluded from a Champions League match against Sporting Lisbon, as he had been filmed 48 hours before for a pool party in northern Italy. He was also excluded from the squad for a match against Stuttgart, as he had recently been taken to Barcelona to visit his old teammate - Ousmane Dembélé. Dortmund called it "disciplinary problems", and there have been many of them.

These had - according to the bulletins - made the teammates distance themselves from Aubameyang in Dortmund, and eventually sports director Michael Zorc and coach Peter Stoger simply got enough of their otherwise dangerous striker - and maybe other clubs were also afraid to pick up the "problem child" .

Several times Real Madrid had shown their interest, but despite their sporting crisis, "Los Blancos" did not strike. Earlier, the Spanish newspaper AS wrote that Real Madrid were willing to pay around 520 million kroner and send their then striker Álvaro Morata to Dortmund, if Aubameyang in turn was sent the opposite way, but it was rejected by Dortmund, although Aubameyang's mother, Margarita Crespo, has previously stated:

He (Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, red) promised his grandfather that he would play for Real Madrid, and ever since he was a small child, he always talked about Real Madrid - not Barcelona.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang did not end up at Real Madrid, and perhaps the explanation lies in the fact that the striker was not bought by Real Madrid in the choice of words from Dortmund legend Matthias Sammer. He has said that Arsenal had bought "A rotten apple" and that the striker's selfish and disrespectful behavior will hardly change.

The same approach has been taken by several experts, after Aubameyang after the great victory over Rennes put on a new mask - this time as "Black Panther". The action cost a warning, and thus the attacker disregarded the team's best for his own gain and ego.

- I needed a mask that represents me. It is a black panther, and in Africa Gabon is called "Gabon's panthers". So this represents me, Aubameyang said.

Sammer was on the field a hard-working midfielder - just like Arteta was, so maybe both have the same attitude towards Aubameyang. Arteta chose to send his star striker to Barcelona despite the fact that it meant Arsenal only had Alexandre Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah left in the squad as decided strikers. When Aubameyang left Arsenal, they had only scored three Premier League goals halfway through the season, but many more Aubameyang had not scored. So he had gone from superhero at Arsenal to a brutal exit or gone from black panther to a rotten apple…?