Bayern Munich Alumni: Philippe Coutinho irate, refuses to come on for Barcelona

Since leaving Bayern Munich in 2020, it’s safe to say that Philippe Coutinho’s career has not rebounded the way people hoped it would. The former Liverpool star remains a misfit on the Barcelona bench, with his massive transfer fee and wage requirements burning a hole in the Catalans’ pockets. The animosity between the two parties seems to be mutual at this point, given the scenes we saw on the Barca bench last night.

If you’re a Bayern fan then you were probably watching Leipzig-BVB when all of this went down, so here’s a quick rundown of the reports we got, in their (somewhat) correct order. It all comes courtesy of reliable Barca accounts, because for some dumb reason, Spanish news sources don’t put everything up on their website. Ugh.

Ooh, that’s bad. If you click on the tweet and read the comments, you’ll see a lot of anger directed at the Brazilian. Just for context, this incident took place around the time that a bunch of players went down injured for Barcelona, most importantly their young striker Ansu Fati. Coutinho probably would’ve come on to replace him, had he been subbed.

More information slowly started to trickle out from the scene of the incident:

And then we got this!

Barca interim coach Sergi Barjuan didn’t want to comment on the incident:

Even Marca claims that Coutinho’s poor attitude was the reason why he wasn’t subbed on versus Celta Vigo. Barcelona ended up drawing that match 3-3, despite taking a 3-0 lead in the first half. Track down some goal highlights because they’re really funny (if you’re not a Barca fan, of course). They also got hammered by muscle injuries, which is a lot less nice. FCB fans can relate.

As for this Coutinho incident, it’s clear that things are going very sour behind the scenes at Barca, and the Brazilian probably isn’t the only one to blame. Bayern fans will remember him as a professional and a hard worker, even if his performances weren’t exactly up to par. For him to show such a poor attitude kind of just speaks to the mess Barca has become, and what a gargantuan job Xavi has just walked into.

As for the final consequences of the incident, looks like his teammates aren’t very happy with him:

Oh man. Barcelona will be visiting the Allianz Arena in December for the final match of the Champions League group stage. Depending on how their game against Benfica goes, that could end up being a do-or-die moment for the Catalans. If you were the coach of Barcelona, would you start Coutinho in that game? As of right now, most people would probably say “no.”