BARCELONA, 11 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Former FC Barcelona player Dani Alves assured that he left the Blaugrana club hurt by his departure, without a farewell to the fans and without being able to continue being a player, at least, until the winter market and thus be able to reach the Qatar 2022 World Cup in shape and as culer.
“I didn’t leave sad. I left happy to have returned to Barcelona. I dreamed for five years wanting to live this second moment. The only thing I didn’t like was how my departure was handled,” he assured in an interview in ‘Guardian’ collected by Europe Press.
Alves explained that since his return to the Camp Nou he made it “very clear” that he was no longer a 20-year-old guy and that he wanted things to be done head-on. “He didn’t want things to be hidden. But this club has sinned in recent years. FC Barcelona doesn’t care about the people who made history for the club,” he lamented.
In this sense, he assured that as a culé he would like the club to do things “in another way”. “I’m not talking about myself because my situation was another scenario. I’m eternally grateful to Xavi and the president for bringing me back,” he clarified, however, after playing the final stretch of the season at Barça.
“I found a club full of young people with incredible ideas on the pitch,” said the Brazilian, who played 17 games this past season and 247 in his first spell at Barça. “But he needs to improve the work off the field. The mentality is totally opposite to what we built a few years ago. Everything that happens on the field is a reflection of what happens outside,” he explained.
“I’m looking forward to Barcelona getting back to the top, but it’s super complicated. Football is more balanced, it’s a collective game. And that has been left out of the club,” said the Rio de Janeiro international.
Looking to his future, he is looking for an exciting challenge and a place where he can fight to be in that World Cup at the end of the year. “This is football. You have to get together with people who want the same goal, who want to compete, win. I like to win and I want to go somewhere where I can win,” he said.