Mundo Deportivo were quite chuffed on Thursday.
Not because they got a big story, but because one of Barcelona’s players decided to reject big offers to stay at the Nou Camp.
Titling their double page spread “High Fidelity”, the Catalan friendly newspaper look at how Ivan Rakitic, one of Barcelona’s key midfielders under Luis Enrique, rejected offers from Manchester United, Chelsea and Juventus to stay in Spain.
As for Chelsea, well Antonio Conte wanted to ‘revitalise’ a crucial area of his team in midfield, but their approach, like the other two, failed.
Rakitic made it clear to his agent that he didn’t want to leave the great Spanish club this summer, and all three teams were quickly rebuffed.
However, the former Sevilla star did ask Barcelona what they wanted to do with him, because the offers were very good, after all, but it seems the La Liga champions weren’t interested in him leaving either.
Could this be just agent games to get their client a new contract? We’ll have to wait and see, but if the interest was real, and Barcelona want to keep him in the long run (his current deal lasts until 2019), they might have to think about extending him over the course of the coming season.
