LIVERPOOL, England — Josep Maria Bartomeu, the president of Barcelona, preferred to focus on what he had gained, rather than what he had lost.

A month or so after Paris St.-Germain paid Barcelona $267 million to make Neymar the most expensive soccer player in history, Bartomeu set aside all of the bitterness, anger and regret that had swirled around the deal to talk about the “opportunity” before him and his club.

“We have earned €105 million,” or about $127 million, he said, “and there is more to invest in football, in assets. Let’s see what we do.”

Almost exactly five months later, the watching world now has an answer. What Barcelona has done with all of that money, all of that opportunity, is sign Ousmane Dembélé, a 20-year-old French winger of bright promise, for an initial $126 million, and allocate even more — upward of $175 million, the second-highest fee in history — to the transfer of Philippe Coutinho, Liverpool’s Brazilian playmaker.