Just days before the all-important Champions League clash between two European giants Manchester City and Barcelona, news has emerged that Pep Guardiola's team were willing to pay £90 million to bring Barcelona and Uruguay striker Luis Suarez back to England this summer.
El Mundo Deportivo reported that Manchester City also made massive bids for talisman Lionel Messi, Brazillian youngster Neymar Jr. and the catalyst to the Barcelona team, especially under Pep Guardiola, Sergio Busquets apart from Luis Suarez. It looks like Pep Guardiola wanted to raid his former side in a bid to bring one of the top players to England and join him in Manchester for the new project.
It was also reported that after a £90 million bid for Luis Suarez was turned down, Manchester City approached Lionel Messi. The Argentinian skipper who was already having a bad summer after announcing retirement from the national team and was going through a trial for tax evasion also turned down Manchester City to remain at Barcelona.
The next player who Pep Guardiola then targetted was Neymar. It was the same story with the Brazillian and hence Pep Guardiola turned his attention to one of his go-to players during his Barcelona tenure – Sergio Busquets. The Spanish midfielder decided to pledge his future to Barcelona and that left Pep’s Manchester City team with Fernandinho in the midfield.
There was, however, one Barcelona player who moved to Manchester City this summer and that was Chilean goalkeeper Claudio Bravo who replace Joe Hart. The two-time Copa America winner will now travel back to his old home Camp Nou to face his ex-team mates Barcelona in a Champions League group stage game.
Bravo will not be the only person going back to a place where he won pretty much everything, there is one other man who will be at the centre of attention on Wednesday night. Barcelona’s all-time-great Pep Guardiola will return to face a team he once conquered the world with. In his four seasons with Barcelona, Pep Guardiola won 14 titles.
His counterpart Luis Enrique who was once his teammate at Barcelona has won 8 trophies in his two seasons in charge of the Catalans and could well be on his way to breaking the record that Pep had set during his tenure. Luis Enrique will be hoping the front three that Pep desperately wanted in the summer will be on top of their game on Wednesday night for Barcelona.
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