Pep Guardiola’s trip to Lisbon is a big deal in Portugal today. We’ve already covered an online article from Mais Futebol this morning, and now it’s time to check what the biggest sports newspapers in the country are saying about it.
Record has the story on its front page: ‘Guardiola came to see Grimaldo’
They claim the Manchester City manager had a free afternoon on Monday and took a flight to watch the player live, during the match against Braga.
The Catalan boss is said to know Grimaldo well, since the left-back went through Barcelona’s youth levels. He never managed the youngster but reportedly is a fan of his qualities.
Guardiola is apparently not satisfied with Gael Clichy and Aleksandar Kolarov as Manchester City’s options for left-back, and Record claims that it would be no surprise if City started the first official talks for the player in January.
The 21-year-old has a €60m release clause, and only a ‘tempting offer’ would take a player away from Benfica, as the club consider he’s rising in value. They paid Barcelona €1.5m for the signing in January.
As the first to publish Manchester City’s interest in the player, O Jogo is happy to boast about it now. They say Guardiola made the trip seventeen days after they reported the chase, and the manager saw a ‘very positive exhibition’ from the fullback.
They claim that Grimaldo’s agent Amadeo Rengel was contacted by City at the end of August as the club wanted to know the conditions of his transfer.
O Jogo says that Guardiola wants to ‘add quality and renew solutions’ at Manchester City for the position and that’s why he’s focused on Grimaldo now. Benfica, on the other hand, are said to have signed the player from Barcelona as a bet to make a big profit with him in the future.
And finally, according to A Bola, Guardiola’s visit really passed unnoticed by Benfica, as confirmed to the newspaper by a source from the club.
They say Grimaldo is already known among clubs with big financial power, which would include Manchester City, but most of them had second thoughts on signing the player after his knee injury in 2013.
Borussia Dortmund tried it in the summer and reportedly made an offer of a loan with an option to buy, but it was turned down by Benfica, and the German side ended up signing FC Lorient’s Raphael Guerreiro instead.
Now that all the outlets have basically published the same information, it’s a little obvious that it was leaked to all of them at once.
The big question about this trip is that Pep Guardiola isn’t exactly an unknown face in Europe, so it’d be pretty impressive if he left Manchester for Lisbon, entered and watched a match in a crowded football stadium, and then did the return trip… all without anyone recognising him.
Was he wearing a wig?
