Chico Ácido 🇦🇹

🚨Pep Guardiola on Julian Alvarez situation concerning Barcelona, Arsenal, Simeone and Atletico Madrid president, Gil Marin: 🎙️Reporter: Pep, Álvarez wants Barcelona, but Atlético prefer Arsenal. You let him leave City when he was contracted — do you see the hypocrisy in Simeone’s handling of this? 🗣️Pep: Yes. And I will not pretend I don’t. When Julián was at City he had a contract until 2028. A real contract. Diego wanted him. Fine. Every coach wants good players. But what did he do? He called Julián five times during the negotiation. Five. His son Giuliano was messaging him. De Paul. Molina. The whole Argentine family inside Atlético selling him the same line: ‘Come here, you will be the main man, not second behind Erling.’ That is tapping. That is convincing a player who is under contract to walk away from the club that paid him, trained him, and won everything with him. And what did I do? I did not go on television to cry. I did not send my players to WhatsApp him at midnight. I did not tell the world that City would rather sell him to anyone except the club he actually wanted. I sat with him. He said he wanted a new challenge. I said: okay. If a player wants to leave, I am not a jailer. I thanked him for two years of enormous contribution. We facilitated the deal. We treated him like a human being, not a hostage. Now the same player says, in public, with honesty: I want to fulfil my dream. Barcelona. Everyone in football knows what that means for an Argentine who grew up watching that shirt. And now Simeone and the president discover principles. Suddenly the contract is sacred. Suddenly ‘he is our player and we will look after him.’ Suddenly they will sell him to Arsenal, to the moon, to anyone — just not to the one club he named as his dream. That is not protecting the club. That is spite. That is ego. That is a coach who was happy to tap a contracted City player when it suited him, and now pretends he is the guardian of loyalty when the player wants to go to Camp Nou. You cannot call a boy five times to steal him from Manchester and then whistle him in your own stadium because he wants Barcelona. You cannot use De Paul and Molina as recruiters and then act shocked when the same player is honest two years later. Either contracts are holy or they are not. You cannot change the religion depending on who is buying. Julián was never a problem for me. He worked, he pressed, he scored, he never complained in the dressing room. When he asked to leave, I helped him leave. That is respect. What they are doing now is the opposite. They are telling a World Cup winner: you can go anywhere except the place that lives in your head. If Simeone wanted to be consistent, he would pick up the phone the same way he did in 2024 and say: ‘Go. We will not hold you hostage.’ Instead they hide behind Gil Marín, behind a clause nobody will ever pay, and they shop him to Arsenal like a punishment. I have nothing against Atlético as a club. I have a problem with hypocrisy. You cannot hunt a player under contract and then chain him when he hunts his own dream. That is not leadership. That is fear dressed up as dignity.