"It's a process; we're going to go step by step" — not the most electrifying rallying cry, but from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, it might be the most honest thing a new signing has said all summer. The 37-year-old has joined Deportivo de A Coruña for their first La Liga season since 2018, and he's under no illusions about where the club stands.
This isn't a retirement lap. Aubameyang netted 11 goals in 18 league appearances for Barcelona during the 2021/22 campaign — arriving in January with the club sitting ninth and helping drag them to second — and he clearly feels he left Spanish football with unfinished business. Depor gives him the chance to write a different kind of story.
Survival first, legacy second
The Galician club won La Liga in 1999/2000 and played Champions League football in the years that followed. Aubameyang watched that era. He knows what the badge means. But the 26 years since that title have been unkind, and right now the priority is simply staying in the division.
That's where his role gets interesting. Depor's squad is young and largely unproven at this level. Aubameyang isn't just there to score goals — he's been signed specifically to be a voice in the dressing room, a steadying presence for players suddenly facing La Liga's pace and intensity for the first time. "They called me because I can bring my experience, my voice, and I can help on the pitch and off the pitch," he said. "This is going to be my role."
Whether that translates into goals that keep them up is the real question. Newly-promoted sides with a veteran striker brought in for leadership and goals tend to live or die by whether that striker delivers in the tight, low-margin games. Depor's anytime scorer odds and relegation prices will be worth watching once pre-season form gives us a cleaner picture.
Nearly 20 years in and still going
Aubameyang has now represented a different club every season since 2021, with two separate stints at Marseille in that stretch. The career arc is unusual, but his reasoning is straightforward: "As long as my body says I can go, I will go."
He also carries a piece of Depor's African footballing history into this chapter. Cameroonian goalkeeper Jacques Songo'o and Moroccan defender Noureddine Naybet were both part of that title-winning squad. Aubameyang is aware of that lineage. "It's always a good thing to be representing Africa all around the world," he said.
Depor are back in La Liga. Aubameyang still believes he can score goals at this level. One of those things is already proven — the other gets tested from August onwards.
