FC Barcelona midfielder Ilkay Gundogan has taken what could be considered a fresh dig at teammate Ilkay Gundogan, and also at former head coach Xavi, during an interview with Der Spiegel.
Gundogan kicked off a controversy following Barca’s Champions League quarterfinal second leg defeat to Paris Saint-Germain, when he appeared to point the finger at Araujo for hacking down Bradley Barcola as the last man and receiving a red card that turned the tide.
Barca were leading 3-1 on aggregate at the time of Araujo’s dismissal, which then led to a 10-man Blaugrana outfit being overrun and bulldozed 4-1 on aggregate to lose 6-4 overall.
“In these crucial moments you have to be sure if you go for the ball,” Gundogan said from the mixed zone post-match.
I don’t know if he touches the ball or not… I prefer to concede a goal or even allow a one-on-one. I don’t know if he got to the ball or not, but give the goalkeeper the opportunity to stop it, or even give them the goal,” he added.
Araujo responded to the furore a few days later at a book launch by answering, “I have values and codes that must be respected,” to a question regarding the matter.
And while the row appeared to be put to bed, Gundogan has risked reigniting it with fresh remarks made to the German media.
“If you’re not prepared to admit mistakes, you can’t succeed,” Gundogan said.
“I talked about us as a team, not just Ronald. You’ll see if you review my statements in full. I also make mistakes and I admit them. If you are not prepared to admit mistakes, you cannot succeed,” Gundogan reiterated.
At another point of the interview, Gundogan made an interesting statement which could perhaps be aimed at former Barca head coach Xavi Hernandez, who was fired last month, by saying that managers must take “between 70 and 80%” of the blame for bad results.
“Coaches create the complete model that their team follows. A really good coach can make a team stand out and make a player bigger than it already is. At Bayer Leverkusen, Xabi Alonso turned [Alex] Grimaldo into a top-level player. Nobody noticed him before this season,” Gundogan explained.
Now set to star for Germany at the Euros, Gundogan will play under the former national team boss that made him captain of his country when he returns to Barca, Hansi Flick.
