24/09/2023
Act. a las 18:07
CEST
Joao Cancelo has landed at Barça at the age of 29 and leaving behind a long professional career that began at Benfica and continued at Valencia, Inter, Juventus, Manchester City and Bayern, where he arrived on loan in the middle of last season. His wish, as he explained in his presentation, was to play for Barça and, although he is still the property of City, four games have been enough for him, on the one hand, to demonstrate that his dream was not a whim and, on the other, to agree with Xavi, the person who insisted the most on achieving his incorporation.
It is common and even advisable that there are discrepancies when it comes to going for one or another player to reinforce a specific position. It happens in all clubs and Barça is no exception. When the time came to go for a right back, Deco believed that the best option was that of Iván Fresneda, one of the revelations last season with Valladolid. So much so that the player, only 18 years old, ended up signing for Sporting de Portugal, which paid nine million euros to the Pucelanos for him. Xavi, on the other hand, believed more in Cancelo’s experience. Both ended up agreeing on the decision and the director of the Football Area got to work to achieve the transfer of the Portuguese, in which his agent, Jorge Mendeshas also played a very important role.
The numbers, but above all the sensations, are those of a great footballer. Cancelo and Barça have fitted together like a glove to the point that, in these four games, he has already been able, with two goals, to surpass his scoring records at Bayern, Juventus and Inter, where he was only able to score kinda. At Valencia his performance had been better: he played 91 games, in which he scored four goals and gave eight assists. And at Manchester City, Pep Guardiola also knew how to extract the best essences of the player thanks to a system that allowed him to be the protagonist, quite the opposite of his adventures in Italy or Germany, even with Nagelsmann or later with Tuchel. Of course, the relationship did not end well between the Catalan coach and the footballer.
Absolute freedom for Cancelo
With Xavi, Cancelo has total freedom to attack, to go inside, to penetrate the area, to open up to the wing. His physical display, which has surprised more than one in the locker room, allows him to play ninety minutes at an enormous pace. The best proof of this are the two goals he has scored to date. The first came at 5-0, when The Portuguese scored the fifth in the 81st minute with a display of power, technique and quality. He repeated against Celta, this time in the 89th minute, to which He arrived fresh to enter the area and take advantage of Gavi’s transfer to complete the comeback. Before, in the 85th minute, he had already assisted Lewandowski.
Cancelo intervenes, directly, in a goal every 95 minutes since he has been at Barça, an average within the reach of very few defenders in the world. It remains to be seen if these numbers will continue, but it is evident that Xavi has a decisive and differential footballer in a lame position for too many years.
2023-09-24 15:50:47
#Cancelo #hand #Xavi
