FC Barcelona, bless ’em, haven’t had the best of summers.
Having watched Real Madrid finish last season with a league and European Cup double, their plans to close the gap on their El Clasico rivals were dealt a major blow by Paris Saint-Germain.
With a £200m buyout clause inserted into Neymar’s most recent Barca contract, the Qatari-backed Ligue 1 side pulled off a world-record move for the Brazilian – one that those in charge at the Camp Nou were powerless to prevent.
Their attempts to spend some of their Neymar cash haven’t exactly gone to plan either. While a move for Borussia Dortmund’s Ousmane Dembele appears close, Liverpool have resisted bids for Philippe Coutinho, who Jürgen Klopp insists will be staying put on Merseyside.
With all this considered, Barca appear weaker at the start of this season than they did at the end of the last – a point which was hammered home by Real Madrid as they sealed a 5-1 aggregate victory over them on Wednesday night in the Spanish Super Cup.
Leading 3-1 from the first leg in Barcelona, goals from Marco Asensio and Karim Benzema made certain that Los Blancos would be picking up their second piece of silverware of the season, following their Super Cup victory over Manchester United last week.
As the result was confirmed, some pointed out a tweet sent by one of PSG’s official Twitter accounts. There was no text, just a smiling emoji and a picture of a laughing Neymar.
— Paris Saint-Germain (@PSG_English) August 16, 2017
The tweet soon received tens of thousands of retweets, with plenty of those sharing it appearing to think this was a not-so-subtle message to Barcelona.
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