In the morning Claudio Bravo was a Barcelona player; by the afternoon he was their opponent and rival, the man who must stop them. Welcome, Claudio. Welcome back, Claudio. Somewhere in a Monte Carlo hotel, there was a cheeky whisper in Thierry Henry's ear: see if you can keep us apart, yeah? Everybody laughed, but many a true word said in jest and all. Besides, Henry couldn't keep them apart. Instead, he brought them together, fishing familiar names from that glass bowl. Manchester City will meet FC Barcelona again in the Champions League.

The first time they met, Yaya Toure boarded the Barcelona team bus with friends and didn't get off again for over an hour; the second time, Leo Messi slipped the ball through Fernandinho's legs and then did the same to James Milner while up in the stands Pep Guardiola slipped a scarf over his face, bamboozled by the brilliance. Guardiola sat in his seat alongside his father, two Barcelona socis together. The next time he went to Man City, he sat down on the bench, as Bayern Munich manager. And that is where he will be this time too.

Yaya Toure used to play for Barcelona, eventually moved on to Man City just as he appears set to be moved on at the Etihad. So did Claudio Bravo. Even Nolito was the player Barcelona manager Luis Enrique wanted most. City's CEO Ferran Soriano is the former Barcelona vice-president and their sporting director is Txiki Begiristain, who had the same role at the Camp Nou. Their model has long taken inspiration from Barcelona. The connections between the clubs are many, Bravo the latest, a signing that underlines shared ideals.

It's not just about Guardiola, but he stands in the middle of it all; this is like City's other meetings with Barcelona, but more so; it is like Bayern's last meeting with Barcelona, but more so.

City have bought Bravo because he fits the philosophy Johan Cruyff brought to Barcelona and no one is more Cruyffist than their manager now. "I grew up with that idea," Guardiola explained. In Nolito, Guardiola sees the qualities Barcelona did. Soriano and Begiristain's ideal journey always involved them becoming reunited with Guardiola. At the Camp Nou, Begiristain made him manager. Together, they won it all, including a treble in the first season.

Fan, ballboy, captain, then the most successful manager they had ever had; an ideologue too, not just a club icon but a Catalan one. They called Guardiola the mite, the myth or legend. But some used that against him; the way some applied it carried a bitter sting. Barcelona fans will welcome him back almost unanimously. "Amongst friends", one headline said this morning, but they are not all friends; there are enemies too. "Best of enemies," another headline had it. Bizarrely, that may be a little more like it.

As I have explained before, there is no escaping the significance of Barcelona's entorno: that swirl of politics, pressure and self-interest that Cruyff always denounced (and became part of). There is a divide, seemingly irreconcilable 'sides' engaged in a kind of civil war, unable to be fully happy even in years of historic success like these.

The City manager stands in the midst of that, unable to escape it. "All I asked was for them to leave me alone", he said after his departure. He always feared, perhaps even knew, that they would not.

This draw has brought that to the surface once more. In Sport, the editor Ernest Folch wrote: "Some desperately need to sell the idea of City as a pernicious club that wants to destroy Barcelona and will rush to call this the war of the worlds, but they will fail again. What City are actually doing is a kind of homage." He insisted: "This is not a war, it's actually a marvellous game", but he knew that hostilities were inevitable.

On the other side of the divide, Santi Nolla, the editor of Sport's rival El Mundo Deportivo, pulled out his poisoned pen marked "Pep": "We should not forget that he is an opponent," Nolla wrote. Fear not: if they do, he will be there to remind them. Which he did again, at the bottom of the editorial, and which was something he reinforced by sniping that Guardiola signed Nolito -- "just in case there were any doubts".

Nolla simultaneously noted that in signing Bravo and not Marc Andre Ter Stegen Guardiola had chosen the "present" while Barcelona had done for the "future" and pointedly asked: "weren't there any other goalkeepers on the market?!," even though this signing probably does Barcelona a favour by finally resolving an issue that threatened to become problematic. And he complained that when Guardiola last came, the entorno "supported Bayern."

But here's the thing: it didn't. It supported Barcelona. Everyone did. For all the self-interest, the politics, the sniping and the sly digs, supporters welcomed Guardiola and then they welcomed his defeat. The way it should be, the way they will now. All the more so as they meet in the group: as those close to Barcelona and those who are close to Guardiola -- and those who are both -- put it even before the draw: better now than later. This way, both teams can progress. The casualties of competition need not be fatal.

"This wasn't what we wanted," Begiristain said. He had not been able to speak to Guardiola as his phone had no coverage but he knew that once the reception returned countless messages would await him. "It'll be emotional," he said, "we have a lot of friends there."

Sid Lowe is a Spain-based columnist and journalist who writes for ESPN FC, the Guardian, FourFourTwo and World Soccer. Follow him on Twitter at @sidlowe.

Barcelona are five-time winners of the competition and last lifted the trophy in 2015.

Jasper Cillessen doesn't want to make an enemy out of Marc-Andre ter Stegen and is happy for Barcelona coach Luis Enrique to decide who he picks as his first-choice goalkeeper this season.

Cillessen, 27, was presented at Camp Nou on Friday after joining the club from Ajax in a deal which could eventually rise to €15 million as Claudio Bravo's replacement, after he signed for Manchester City.

Bravo has played La Liga games for the Catalan side for the last two seasons, while ter Stegen has featured in the Champions League and the Copa del Rey.

Cillessen says he's unaware of how the situation will unfold this year, but hopes the competition between the two goalkeepers will help them both to improve.

"I think the coach decides who plays, so all I can do is make it as hard as possible," he said. "We won't be enemies, we will push each other on and leave it up to the coach to make the decisions.

"I hope I can make it difficult [for Luis Enrique] as soon as possible, but first I need to adapt, coming from Amsterdam."

The Netherlands international won't be available for Sunday's league game against Athletic Bilbao due to paperwork issues, but he was able to train with his new teammates on Friday.

And he was given a particularly warm welcome by ter Stegen, as well as by former Ajax striker Luis Suarez.

"This morning [ter Stegen] welcomed me and I told him we can speak in English but also in German, because I speak a little German, and I think we can get along quite well," he said.

"I think he is a great goalkeeper, he showed that in Germany when he started and now here.

"His most important quality is his footballing skills and I hope I can be at the same level. It will be great to play with Luis, too. I didn't play with him at Ajax but I know all about him, of course.

"The first thing he said to me was in Dutch, asking me how I was, so he made me feel immediately at home."

Cillessen, who cited Edwin van der Sar as his role model, is now looking forward to "winning a lot of trophies and making people proud"-- both in the Netherlands and in Catalonia.

Source:
courtesy of ESPNFC

by SAMUEL MARSDEN

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