- 17 hours ago
Barcelona star makes HILARIOUS social media u-turn
Jules Kounde has taken to Instagram to laugh off his previous comments at a press conference, giving confirmation to a change in position.
For much of his footballing career, Jules Kounde has been a centre-back. That's the position where he broke through and made a name for himself in.
But since joining Barcelona he has been playing at right-back, initially to help the team, as the club did not have a recognised player in the position and his manager at the time Xavi convinced him he was the best man for the role.
Kounde never liked playing there and would insist he was only doing it to help his team, especially in his second season when he began the season back at centre-back but had to move once it became clear João Cancelo wasn't a good enough defender.
Despite not liking it, Kounde has been getting better and better at playing right-back. Now, after an incredible display in the Champions League where he picked up 3 assists in a 2-5 win against Red Star Belgrade, he appears to have made it official on social media.
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The Instagram account esn.off posted an edited video captioned "BE HONEST @jkeey4" in which footage of Kounde declaring "I am not a right-back" during a French national team press conference was intercut with a famous scene from Netflix's David Beckham documentary where the former Man Utd and Real Madrid winger asks his wife Victoria to "be honest."
This was then followed by a quick montage of Kounde's three assists against Red Star before ending with Victoria being honest and David Beckham saying "thank you."
Kounde captioned the video "LMAO" given tacit confirmation that he is now, officially, a right-back.
Jules Kounde: becoming a right-back
It's fitting that the footage used is from a French national team press conference as that was the first place he actually did play right-back. Back in 2021, just to get in the side (at the time Raphael Varane and Presnel Kimpembe were entrenched as Didier Deschamps' centre-backs of choice) he played a couple times at right-back.
He didn't play there for France again until the 2022 World Cup, by which time Xavi had already begun using him there.
Kounde's poor showing in the first-half of the World Cup final could have been an end to the experiment, but Xavi persisted.
Now, under Hansi Flick's guidance, Kounde is playing better than ever at right-back. His rugged defending makes Barcelona solid down that flank and he's now even getting involved with creating goals for the team.
Good things happen when you be honest.
