Pep Goes On Scouting Mission To Watch Former Barca Player

Featured image credit: PA Images

Pep Guardiola was present at the Estadio da Luz as Benfica took on Braga, last night with Spanish left-back Alex Grimaldo the reason for the Manchester City manager's attendance in Lisbon.

Guardiola wanted the trip to be as covert as possible, with the likes of Arsenal, Manchester United, Inter Milan, Bayer Leverkusen, Celtic and Everton all having scouts observing the game. The former Bayern and Barcelona manager made the trip on a private plane and flew back to England as soon as the match finished.

Grimaldo, who turns 21 today, was a member of Barcelona's famed La Masia academy until joining the Portuguese champions at the beginning of the year for 1.5m euros. The left-back has represented Spain at U16, U17, U19 and U21 level but is yet to earn his first full international cap.

Guardiola

Image credit: PA Images

While Barca didn't insert a buy back clause into the deal taking Grimaldo to Benfica, they do earn a percentage of any future sales, meaning that Guardiola could end up earning his former club a few million euros in the near future.

(H/T Mais Futebol)

Topics: Manchester City, Football, Pep Guardiola, Benfica

Joe Baiamonte

Northerner. Assistant Editor of SPORTbible. Studied Journalism and Broadcasting in a portakabin on a car park of Salford University for three years. Believes football peaked with Serie A in the '90s and strong-arms pro wrestling references into as many articles as possible. Neymar once took 50 euros off me during a game of poker.

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