Barcelona failed to unveil Portuguese full-back Joao Cancelo as a new player before the friendly against Egypt’s Al-Ahly.<\/p>\n
Barcelona hosted Egypt’s Al-Ahly today, Wednesday, at the Spotify Camp Nou in a friendly for the Joan Gamper Trophy.<\/p>\n
Before kick-off, the Catalans presented new Spanish midfielder Rodri, signed from Manchester City during the current summer window.<\/p>\n
Spanish journalist Victor Navarro said the club also intended to unveil Cancelo, the reason for the full-back’s presence at the Spotify Camp Nou despite his signing not being officially announced.<\/p>\n
In a tweet on his personal account on X, Navarro explained that Cancelo was ready to follow Rodri, wearing the Barcelona shirt with the number 2 he had worn in the second half of last season.<\/p>\n
Yet the Portuguese full-back ultimately left the pitch without being unveiled, his registration incomplete. His Spanish team-mate Lamine Yamal tried to ask him why. Cancelo walked off angrily.<\/p>\n
Barcelona made every effort to seal the deal officially today, Wednesday, to unveil Cancelo before the Al-Ahly match, according to the Spanish journalist. They failed.<\/p>\n
Press reports had confirmed that Al-Hilal agreed with the full-back to terminate his contract, which was due to expire at the end of the current season, in exchange for waiving the rest of his dues.<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old had played for Al-Hilal since the summer of 2024, but was left out of the club’s domestic squad last season, deciding to move to Barcelona on loan in the second half.<\/p>\n
Cancelo shone during that loan spell and helped fire the Catalans to the La Liga title at the expense of traditional rivals Real Madrid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barcelona failed to unveil Portuguese full-back Joao Cancelo as a new player before the friendly against Egypt’s Al-Ahly.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[18165,182,28174,28175,92,26942,23952,24127,1888,265],"class_list":["post-72803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-al-ahly-sc","tag-al-hilal","tag-al-fayha","tag-al-fayha-vs-al-hilal","tag-barcelona","tag-barcelona-vs-al-ahly-sc","tag-club-friendlies","tag-j-cancelo","tag-saudi-pro-league","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}