Cesc Fabregas has labelled Jose Mourinho a friend but says he has “nothing” with Pep Guardiola.
The Spaniard spent three years at Barcelona after joining in 2011 from Arsenal, whom he joined from Barcelona at 16. After his time in Catalonia he joined Chelsea, where he spent the next five years. The 22 year-old currently plays for Monaco.
Speaking on Catalunya Radio’s Tot Costa programme in quotes carried by Mundo Deportivo, Fabregas also touched on the end of his time at Camp Nou.
“I was a little out of tune with the club at the end,” he said about Barcelona. “I started the first year very well and then I think I had a very good year in the second, with Tito [Villanova].
“But football has no memory. My feelings are that that period with Barca, seen from my perspective now, was much better than it seemed when I left the club.”
In London, Fabregas found that he was valued by Mourinho in a way that he wasn’t by Guardiola at Barcelona. “I have always liked to be valued and esteemed by the clubs [I play for], and when I saw that I no longer was at Barca, I saw that there were coaches in Europe who valued me more.
“My first season at Chelsea, when we won the double, helped me a lot,” he said, explaining that Mourinho “was the one who inspired me the most when I left Barca. He told me that we had [differences] on the field, but that it ended there.
“He told me about his project and I prioritised the professional. Today I continue to write with him and I consider him a friend. He helped me a lot at the time.”
With Guardiola, however, the situation is somewhat different. “With Pep, nothing,” he said simply. “There are things that happened that I don’t want to talk about.”
He admitted, however, that Guardiola “was my idol in my childhood and perhaps is the person from whom I’ve learned the most – as a player, an idol and a coach. That’s it.”
Fabregas won La Liga with Barcelona, as well as the Copa del Rey, two Spanish Super Cups, the European Super Cup and the Club World Cup. With Chelsea, the midfielder won two Premier League titles, the FA Cup and the League Cup.
Featured image courtesy of The Mirror.
