Jurgen Klopp has managed to irritate the Catalan media, which isn’t hard.
In comments leading up to the match, the Liverpool manager said the Camp Nou is ‘no temple of football’.
What he meant was that his side won’t be scared or intimidated ahead of facing Barcelona in the Champions League.
But it’s not gone down well.
Catalan newspaper Sport have published an article saying Barcelona ‘responds forcibly to Klopp’.
It’s claimed the German’s comments ‘did not sit well’ and Barca ‘have not been slow’ in firing back at the Liverpool boss.
Sport continue: ‘The Blaugrana chose social networks to give their version this Tuesday. And did it forcefully: “This is the Camp Nou, our home, our temple, our fortress.”
Along with this sentence, a video with some important moments in the history of the Blaugrana team appears and the figures of Leo Messi and Luis Suárez also play a leading role. The publication ends with the message: “Més que un club”.’
Usually, we’d probably say that Sport are seeing something which isn’t there, reading too much into things, but that they’ve used the word ‘temple’, following all the fuss in Spain over Klopp’s words, would appear too much of a coincidence.
Esto es el Camp Nou🔥
Nuestra casa. Nuestro templo. Nuestro fortín.⚔🛡
⚽#BarçaLFC
🔵🔴 #WeColorFootball pic.twitter.com/B1kfbSSBPG— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona_es) April 30, 2019
The other Catalan sport newspaper, Mundo Deportivo, are running a similar story.
It all adds another aspect to the match between Liverpool and Barcelona, and it’s fair to say the animosity is rising, with articles also being published about the Reds not being so scary.
