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Jules Kounde completed a move to Barcelona over the summer, but he has revealed that Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola once expressed “love” for him.
The defender had spent several transfer windows generating plenty of rumours, with his form at Sevilla attracting admiring glances from afar. Barca eventually agreed a €60 million (£52m/$61m) deal that has kept him in Spain, but Chelsea were heavily linked over a prolonged period of time and interest was also shown by City before an official approach was knocked back.
Kounde has told El Pais of the attention he generated: “In my first year at Sevilla, he [Guardiola] called me. He told me that he loved me and that he thought I would fit the way he played.
“I talked a lot about football with both of them [Xavi and Guardiola]. And that’s what I like. The first thing, in the conversations I had with them, I realised that they had both seen me play. They knew my capabilities perfectly. They didn’t talk just to talk. They were very precise conversations.”
Kounde spent three years on the books at Sevilla, taking in 133 appearances for the club and helping them to Europa League glory in 2019-20. He has earned 11 caps for France and will be hoping to figure in their plans when Les Bleus defend their global crown at the 2022 World Cup finals in Qatar.
Barca have made an unbeaten start to the 2022-23 campaign and will be back in Champions League action on Tuesday when taking in a trip to Bayern Munich.
