Former Barcelona player Arda Turan will not face the Catalans on Thursday night, as his current team Galatasaray visit Camp Nou in their Europa League clash.
It had been rumoured and reported by MARCA that the Turkish international was placed into exile due to his lack of fitness. The decision according to them was taken by manager Domenec Torrent, who himself was part of Pep Guardiola’s technical team at Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
There was also a suggestion that it may signal the end of Turan’s career, with a possible retirement on the cards.
Since then, SPORT have added more nuance to the situation. According to the Barcelona-based paper, Arda’s exile is much more of a political issue. When previous manager Fatih Terim was sacked by the club, Arda was unequivocal in his support for his former manager and made no efforts to hide this.
More than that, he also attended a farewell dinner with Terim the night before Galatasaray took on Goztepe. This was the final straw for club President Burak Elmas and since that match, Turan has not been included in the squad for any of Galatasaray’s fixtures.
That being said, his physical condition apparently made the decision a lot simpler for Torrent too. Another cantankerous chapter in the biography of Arda Turan.
