There are moments that mark the temperature of a locker room. Especially when the results go wrong. After PSG beat Barcelona in Montjuïc (1-4), yesterday morning the Barça players met again at the Ciudad Deportiva. The first decision that Sergi Roberto made was not to alter the routines. “Do you want to change the media day to Friday?” they asked the captain. “Everything remains the same,” he replied. An attitude that Ronald Araujo joined. In the target after being sent off in the duel against the Parisian team, the Uruguayan chose to keep his agenda, in which he had planned to appear today at the presentation of the book of Solidarity Stories that he sponsors. “You always have to show your face,” he warned. He was not even bothered when asked about Gündogan’s statements: “I didn’t like it, but I will talk to him privately.”
Contrary to with the expulsion of the Blaugrana. “I don’t want to say it was a mistake, I wanted to go for the ball. If he whistles for a foul, he has to be expelled. And the foul can be pointed out to Araujo,” analyzed Ter Stegen. Gündogan, less accustomed to diplomacy, went a step further. “If there was a foul it is red, that’s for sure. It’s hard to say, but in these crucial moments you have to be sure you’re going for the ball. I don’t know if he touches the ball or not. I prefer to give our goalkeeper the opportunity to save it or even concede a goal. But being left with one less so soon kills you in the game,” added the former City player.
After the game, Gündogan did not go to the locker room. And, while he waited to pass the anti-doping control, the German took the opportunity to attend the television channels with the right. It was then that he judged Araujo’s action, as well as Vitinha’s goal. “Another mistake,” he noted; “We didn’t have to let him shoot. He was free. “It’s nothing we haven’t trained.” It is not the first time that Gündogan speaks without reversals. After the defeat against Real Madrid in Montjuïc (1-2), the German said that he would have liked to “see more anger and disappointment.” Yesterday, according to sources from the Barça staff, Gündogan and Araujo did not speak. “But there was no type of bad feeling,” say the same sources. A state of mind that is confirmed by the Uruguayan’s entourage: “Gundo doesn’t quite understand the context of Spain. In Manchester he could say the same thing and nothing would happen. Everything is different here.”
“To talk about bad weather is to have no idea how this locker room works,” explains one of the captains. “They criticize us for saying clichés and they criticize us for being honest. It’s not understood. “It’s quite hypocritical,” adds the same footballer. The unity of the squad is precisely one of the arguments of the Barcelona sports management to explain the change of the team, without direction in the defeat against Villarreal (3-5) when Xavi announced his goodbye, competitive in the tie against PSG until Araujo went to the locker room in the 29th minute. “We win and lose as a team,” Koundé recalled. “Now more united than ever, we win here,” added Sergi Roberto. Both messages were written on social networks.
Araujo, for his part, did not hide: “The football that gave me so much joy, now hits me hard. I thank all those who are unconditionally by my side, my teammates who left everything on the field and the fans who believed until the end.” He won’t hide today either. “Whatever he has to say he will do it with height,” they conclude from their surroundings. At Barça there is no single story, there is no better example than the different analyzes of Xavi and his players, as well as between those of Gündogan and Araujo.
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