BarcelonaIlkay Gündogan will have a good reception in the Barça dressing room. The former City captain will meet Marc-André ter Stegen, his teammate in the German national team, and also an old friend: Robert Lewandowski, with whom he shared a dressing room at Borussia Dortmund before one packed his bags for Munich and the other to Manchester. In fact, according to the Polish press, the two spoke about the Blaugrana side recently, when they faced each other in a friendly between Poland and Germany in Warsaw last week. Both Lewandowski and Ter Stegen are part of the new guard in the dressing room, a bulk of footballers from central Europe who have forged friendships at Barça. If before it was the group led by Leo Messi, Luis Suárez, Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets who had the singing voice (Piqué moved away from it a little in recent years, as his relationship with Messi deteriorated), with the March of all together clan from the north is now the protagonist of the new leaderships.
Gündogan will be sponsored by Ter Stegen and Lewandowski, in the same way that when Barça signed Philippe Coutinho in January 2018, the Brazilian was received by Luis Suárez, with whom he had agreed at Liverpool, and also, at the request of the Uruguayan , for Messi. Although Coutinho never set foot at the Camp Nou, the ex-Blaugrana 9 was a pillar for his arrival: “They had a very good relationship from the stage they had shared together in England and both he and Messi looked for him a home in Castelldefels, next to where they lived,” a manager from that time reminds ARA. Those were other times, now Gündogan will be sponsored by the group led by the German goalkeeper and the Polish striker, who, despite being in his first year at Barcelona, has become one of the leaders of a dressing room full of very young players. In fact, it has been common throughout the season to see Lewandowski waiting for his teammates in the dressing room tunnel and cheering them on before games.
Another newcomer, like Andreas Christensen, is also part of this group, like Frenkie de Jong. Both have a shy temperament. Sergi Roberto, hinge between the youngsters and former captains Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, is also very close to this group of footballers. Ter Stegen, who is learning Catalan (little by little), jokes about the language with Reusen and the coaching staff, especially José Ramón de la Fuente, the goalkeeping coach. Apart from the group from the north and the center of Europe, there are other groups in a dressing room in which Xavi Hernández, who is very well known for his long time as a Barça player, has rowed to create a good atmosphere . Pranks, goal awards and competitive games in training have helped in this regard.
Ronald Araujo – who sees himself as a leader -, Pedri and Gavi lead the singing voice in the group of the youngest, where there are also Ansu Fati, Eric Garcia, Alejandro Balde, Arnau Tenas and Ferran Torres. With whom the Valencian winger maintains a closer relationship is Pedri: they share a representation agency, the Valencian Leaderbrock Sports. On the other hand, Ferran’s relationship with Ansu is more distant. The Spanish-Guinean maintains a good bond with Eric Garcia, with whom they grew up together in the lower categories of Barça before the central Martorell left, in the youth stage, for Manchester City, where he finished his training.
There are also footballers who, without being closely identified with any group, have a good relationship with the bulk of the dressing room. Of the newcomers, Jules Kounde, a recurring target of the jokes of his colleagues due to the stridency in some of his looks, plays with Ousmane Dembélé. Both are teammates in the French national team and, after the departure of Antoine Griezmann, the winger has someone to speak his native language with, although internally they point out that he speaks Spanish better than it seems. In fact, since the last season Dembélé has been urged by the club’s communication department to make more appearances linked to Barça’s media and broadcasting channels.
Franck Kessie has also entered the Blaugrana dressing room on a good foot and the nickname of president that was won in Milan has not gone unnoticed in Barcelona. Raphinha is one of the other newcomers who also gets on well with the bulk of the squad and even publicly apologized for a bad attitude towards Ferran Torres when, in the duel against Manchester United at Camp Nou, he was substituted . As for landing Marcos Alonso – who already knew the rest of the Spanish internationals in the dressing room – and Pablo Torre, both have forged a bond between them.
The work of Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba with the youngest
It has been a year of many changes in terms of leadership that had been in place in the dressing room for a number of years. Piqué said goodbye in the middle of the season, while Busquets, who had a broken hand with the youngsters, and Jordi Alba will not continue either. It has been the most difficult course for the l’Hospitalet winger, who has seen how for the first time he stopped being a starter and started to have a secondary role. Alba understood that he had to step aside and, with Xavi’s mediation, accepted his role as Alejandro Balde’s tutor. In previous seasons, for example, he had been much more distant with footballers (like Júnior Firpo) who came to compete for his place. Changing of the guard and good weather in the dressing room. Barça begins a new era.
2023-06-25 18:30:26
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