Barcelona midfielder Ivan Rakitic has claimed that his romance with future wife Raquel Mauri could have come straight out of a Hollywood film.

The 27-year-old met Raquel when she was working as a waitress in the hotel where the footballer decided to sign for Sevilla from Schalke 04 in 2011.

"I was living in that hotel for almost three months at first and I would go to the bar every day and order a coffee and an Orange Fanta because that is all I knew how to ask for in Spanish," the Daily Mail quotes Rakitic as saying. "Sometimes I would have to say 'no not you, the other one' if a different waitress tried to serve me.

"Raquel would always say she had to work so she couldn't come out with me, but one day a friend tipped me off that she was in the bar on her day off so I jumped straight in the car and drove to the bar. I walked up to her, pulled up a chair and said 'here I am, and now you have to come out with me because you're not working'.

"She came out for dinner with me the next day and we have been together ever since. George Clooney couldn't have done it better."

Rakitic, who signed for Barcelona last year, first married Raquel in a civil ceremony in 2013, but the couple tied the knot again this year before going to the Maldives on honeymoon.