Joao Cancelo fell out with Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola last season after the City manager favoured rising star Rico Lewis over him in the second half of the season.
That’s according to journalist Martí Perarnau, who has detailed what happened last season and why Cancelo was eventually loaned to Barcelona in the summer after a similar spell at Bayern Munich.
Cancelo was one of the surprise deals of the January transfer window when he joined Bayern Munich on loan until the end of the season.
Few had seen that happening given the vital role he had played at Manchester City up to that point, establishing himself as one of the key players in their success and making himself on of the best attacking full backs in Europe.
He was shipped out again in the summer, joining Barcelona one a season-long long deal that the Catalans are hoping to turn into a permanent move at the end of the season.
A report yesterday indicated that Manchester City are willing to facilitate such a transfer thanks to the player’s ‘difficult relationship’ with Guardiola, something Perarnau has now provided a background to.
“When Cancelo feels ugly, and when I say ugly, I mean it metaphorically, for whatever reason, the collapse is very big,” Cadena SER report him saying.
“There was a phenomenon this beginning of the year, which was the appearance of Rico Lewis, at a time when Cancelo returned from the World Cup in a very poor state of form and Kyle Walker comes back.
“The only solution is going to be to put a 17-year-old player to play against Chelsea, Liverpool and against everyone. The kid is starting to put in extraordinary performances and is going to win the job, but Cancelo doesn’t want to accept that.”
He then added that Cancelo “demanded” to play, something which made Guardiola and some of his teammates feel bad, escalating the situation and the conflict between the coach and player before he was eventually loaned out.
He’s now at Barcelona and happy, with the ground seemingly being laid for a permanent deal to be done next summer and ensure there is no unhappy return to the Etihad.
