You know that whole thing we discussed on Wednesday about how Bayern Munich magically appeared out of nowhere to ‘overtake’ Manchester City in the race to sign Joao Cancelo?
Well, it’s not the Bavarians who are charging forward for the Portuguese defender on Thursday. Nope. It’s Barcelona.
That’s what Gazzetta dello Sport are reporting, as they explain Pep Guardiola will now have to beat his former side to Cancelo’s signature.
The reason behind this is Barcelona could lose Nelson Semedo to Atlético Madrid (apparently), which is why they’ve highlighted his national teammate as a potential replacement.
The Italian newspaper were one of the few to not seriously report on Bayern’s interest in the Manchester City target, and the fact they now have this wonderful news that Barcelona are involved further backs our suspicion someone is trying to put pressure on the Premier League champions to cough up the money.
What’s interesting is that these stories about competition for Cancelo all appeared around the same time the Cityzens’ focus switched to Rodri, whom Atlético Madrid announced on Wednesday would be leaving for the Etihad after his release clause was paid.
It’s almost as if Juventus were annoyed they were no longer priority number one.
Either way, with Rodri now all but done, Manchester City will undoubtedly turn their attention back to other targets, which appear to include the right-back as Gazzetta state once more that Guardiola is adamant he wants the 25-year-old in the north of England next season.
The newspaper explain Juventus need money to enter their bank account soon, and it becomes even clearer they were probably somewhat frustrated by Manchester City paying them less attention.
Furthermore, that these Bayern Munich and Barcelona stories are popping up left, right and centre in the Italian press, while the German and Spanish media have no information on them whatsoever (SportBild even rubbished the Bavarians’ ‘interest’ on Thursday morning) is a huge giveaway.
The price, however, remains the same (€60m) and that applies to anyone interested.
