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As is often true during the ceremony when a club unveils its new signing, the most interesting thing said when Barcelona paraded Jules Kounde at their training ground on Monday wasn’t uttered by the player. Instead, it was said about him.
It came when Mateu Alemany, Barcelona’s new director of football and “get-it-done” guy who ensures the club’s dealings are now robust, intelligent and strategic, insisted on going back to the question as to why the €55 million defender wasn’t already a Chelsea player. Alemany emphasised that he’d several times told Kounde (via his agent Jonathan Kebe) that “… if you want things sorted out quickly, then take one of those other big offers you’ve got, but stop calling me because I’ve got no news …”
Barca’s representative was emphasising how brutally complicated it has been for the club to negotiate the economic “levers,” with Sixth Street and Socios.com, worth several hundred million euros, that have left the club liquid and hungry to spend. He looked out into the massed ranks of media to find Kede, who was seated there with some of Kounde’s family, and asked: “What was it, Jonathan? Did you phone me every single day, or only every two days, for the last two months?”
Alemany made crystal clear that Kounde had chosen Barcelona as his destination over two months ago and despite weeks of the club being unable to give him any hope or encouragement, the 23-year-old had stubbornly resisted Chelsea and waited patiently for the green light from Camp Nou. Under normal circumstances, a France international like Kounde would by now be a pillar of Chelsea’s rebuild following Roman Abramovich’s departure. But he wanted to stay in LaLiga, he wanted to join Barcelona and, above all, he wanted to play for Xavi.
In Kounde, the Catalan coach has grabbed a seriously talented defender who: knows LaLiga inside out; fits his new club’s playing philosophy to perfection; can play in a few positions depending on formation; has broken the trend…
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Source : espn
