FC Barcelona star: “If I don’t play well, they’ll get rid of me”

When you play at a club like FC Barcelona, the pressure is intense, it’s not for everyone. Not only are you expected to win, but you’re expected to look good while you do it.

It’s the same at every major European club. When Harry Kane joined Bayern Munich, he spoke about how fans expected the team to dominate every weekend. That’s part of life at the top, and it’s not for everyone.

Barcelona scraped through against Celta Vigo yesterday for their 5th straight league victory and 6th victory in a row if you count the 5-0 thrashing of Royal Antwerp in the Champions League.

Xavi attempted to rotate the team yesterday and deploy some new tactics, but with Celta going 0-2 ahead, he quickly reverted to more tried and tested techniques, leaving his team enough time to score 3 goals in 9 minutes.

The winning goal was scored by Joao Cancelo, who joined Barca on loan from Manchester City on deadline day having fallen out of favour with Pep Guardiola and having spent the second half of the 2022 season on loan at Bayern Munich.

Considering Cancelo has played for Munich, Manchester City and now Barcelona, he knows the pressure at the top and is under no illusions as to the cut-throat nature of life among the elite.

Joao Cancelo knows he has to perform if he wants to stay at FC Barcelona

During his post-match interview, Cancelo was extremely humble when it came to his contributions and took responsibility for Barcelona finding themselves two goals down

"“Personally I was having a very bad game. Technically I was making a lot of mistakes, We have to stay focused until the end. It’s important to win by playing badly, but we have to improve”.“I was lost in my head and I made a lot of technical errors, which is not normal in my game, because I made a lot of bad passes, but it’s better to play badly and win than to play well and lose. If I perform, the club will want me. If I don’t perform, they will get rid of me.”"

Cancelo is only on loan at Barcelona, but rumours indicate that Barca could sign the Portuguese defender for just €25 million next summer. So far Cancelo has been a revelation at Barcelona and one bad defensive game where he assisted and scored a goal won’t ruin the early season form he’s shown.

But it’s certainly nice to see some accountability.