Barcelona warned star player is a timebomb: Even God couldn’t stand him!

Robin Bairner

• 23 Feb 2024 08:42 GMT
• 3 min read

Barcelona have been warned over the attitude of Joao Cancelo, who is at the club on loan from Manchester City.

The Spaniard has featured 28 times in all competitions for Xavi’s side this season having been pushed out of the Premier League winners following a fallout with manager Pep Guardiola.

Cancelo has been exiled by Man City for more than a year now, having spent the second half of last season at Bayern Munich. But after being shunted to the Bundesliga giants because of his poor attitude, he also experienced a troubled time in Germany because of his mentality.

The demons of the 29-year-old have been explained by Spanish journalist Lu Martin.

“We have explained it several times,” he said. “It’s a problem of attitude and behaviour. If there’s one thing Pep can’t stand it’s bad behaviour and being overweight.

“Cancelo’s behaviour was not the right one, although as a footballer he has tremendous quality. The same thing happened to him at Valencia. He didn’t leave because he didn’t play badly, he left because even God couldn’t stand him.”

Will Barca sign Cancelo?

Barcelona have been advised against buying Cancelo on a permanent basis due to his attitude.

The Catalans do not have a purchase in their loan agreement with City, but it promises to be difficult for the Spain international to return to his former club.

“At Barca as long as he plays, there is no problem, but the day he stops playing his character will come out,” Martin said. “As long as he doesn’t have competition that won’t happen, but at City it was different, there was a lot of quality there.”

City signed Cancelo from Juventus in the summer of 2019 for €65 million but the player’s Estimated Transfer Value (ETV) is now €33m, down from a peak of €74m in March 2022.