Farewell in Portuguese – Newspaper Kommersant No. 18 (7463) of 02/01/2023

On the last day of the winter transfer window in European football, one of the most unexpected transfers of recent years took place. Manchester City gave Bayern on loan, but with the right to buy Joan Cancelo, although a few weeks ago the Portuguese was considered virtually indispensable on the left flank of the Manchester defense. The reason for parting with him, it seems, was the conflict between Cancel and coach Pep Guardiola due to the football player’s reduced playing time after the December restart of the season.

Hours before the winter transfer window closed on Tuesday, English football giants Manchester City announced that they had loaned Portugal’s João Cancelo to German giants Bayern Munich. Renting is actually like a full-fledged transfer. Bayern’s transfer deal includes a buyout option for the Portuguese for €70m. And Bayern’s sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic has already signaled that they are ready to take advantage of it, saying the club has been “thinking for a long time” about acquiring Joan Cancelo, who “fits in perfectly” into his game system.

The deal is notable primarily for its absolute surprise. The fact is that shortly after moving to Manchester City from Juventus in 2019, João Cancelo became one of its key players. Closing the left flank, the Portuguese made a great contribution to the success of Manchester in the previous two championships in England. And this season, after Manchester City sold the Ukrainian Oleksandr Zinchenko to Arsenal in the summer, who had approximately the same functionality, the role of Cancelu seemed to be even more important. Moreover, the figures confirmed the thesis. João Cancelo has played a total of 1,866 minutes in various official competitions this season, more than any other Manchester City defensive player. And he broke up with him without buying anyone in the market in return, and at a moment that looked extremely inappropriate. Now Manchester City is desperately trying to catch up with Arsenal, who have lost five points in the championship.

There is nothing strange in the fact that a number of media resources attributed the breakup to the conflict between Juan Cancelu and the club’s mentor Pep Guardiola. Cancelu himself, in a farewell statement addressed to the team’s fans, admitted that he “wanted to play more” and that his relationship with Guardiola had been “not the best” lately.

The BBC, explaining his words, pointed out that after a pause in the season associated with the World Cup in Qatar, João Cancelo’s playing time has indeed been drastically reduced. In the ten matches played by Manchester City after the restart, the matches of the national championship, the National Cup and the English League Cup, it totaled only 256 minutes. At the same time, Pep Guardiola included only three times in the starting lineup of Juan Cancelo.

The reason for the change in attitudes towards the Portuguese, according to the BBC, was primarily the emergence of good alternatives. We are talking about the defender of the Dutch national team Nathan Ake, who is used to playing in the center, but managed to adapt on the left flank, and most importantly, about Rico Lewis. The 18-year-old defender made five Premier League appearances in December and January, being on the field in four of them from the first minute and earning excellent reviews from experts.

Alexey Dospekhov