Shock! Barcelona’s new bosses don’t like Bayern Munich very much

According to a report by Sport1, the new bosses at FC Barcelona are not on good terms with Bayern Munich at the moment. Barca President Joan Laporta has become increasingly irritated by Bayern’s attempts to poach their talent, notably the young Spanish midfielder Pedri and American right-back Sergino Dest.

An unnamed source at the Catalan club said that, “it’s true that Bayern have been in talks with Barcelona players without informing Barça about it. I wouldn’t say that the relationship between the clubs is very bad, but it’s certainly not what it used to be.”

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Per the report, Hasan Salihamidzic and Marco Neppe tried extremely hard to sign Pedri last summer, even attempting to prevent him from signing a new contract. However the Spaniard ended up extending his deal, and the pursuit left Barca wary of further advances.

In fact, Bayern’s interest in Pedri extends all the way back to 2020, when he first transferred from Las Palmas to Barca. With the youngster’s game time in doubt due to Ronald Koeman, Bayern enquired about a loan. However, Barca rejected it outright.

As for other transfers — much has already been made of Bayern’s interest in Sergino Dest. The young American was aggressively pursued by Brazzo before he opted for Barca, but the interest is yet to cool. Meanwhile you had reports like this earlier in the season, where Bayern were allegedly contacting Barca players and offering them a “new challenge” should they choose to leave the club.

Retaliation on the way?

It seems that Barcelona won’t take these threats lying down. Per Sport1’s reporting, the Catalans will try to target Niklas Sule on a free in the summer, as well as Bayern Campus talents Gabriel Vidovic and Kenan Yildiz.

It looks like the days of the Coutinho loan deal are coming to an end. Back in 2019, Rummenigge could just call up Bartomeu and get a multi-million euro loan deal arranged in a matter of days. That kind of thing probably won’t happen anymore. A cold war between the two FCB’s probably won’t be ideal for either side, but that’s the direction things seem to be headed right now.