There’s an usual snippet from Catalan newspaper Sport on Wednesday. Usually ready to talk up any transfer rumour, Sport are especially happy to speak about clubs trying to sign Barcelona players, only to get knocked back.
Premier League money being dangled in front of Barcelona’s squad, and being ignored, can sometimes be a source of pride, so Sport’s update on Ivan Rakitic is surprising.
Manchester City were repeatedly linked with Rakitic before he renewed his Barcelona contract in March, but Sport insist there wasn’t a great deal in it. Whilst they say Juventus, Bayern Munich, and ‘several English clubs’ were keen, it’s made clear that Manchester City never took initial interest anywhere.
Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano didn’t put a firm offer together to sign the player for Manchester City, and Rakitic didn’t show a great deal of willingness to move to England this summer anyway.
So despite all the Manchester City claims at the time, Sport reckon that, in reality, there wasn’t really much in it.
