FC Barcelona had perhaps one of the most incredible transfer markets in its own history. The Catalans managed to do big-money deals for numerous top players in the market despite their financial difficulties.
Almost all of the fresh arrivals have already impressed the Camp Nou faithful.
Robert Lewandowski has hit the ground running in La Liga with five goals to his name already. Raphinha has a goal, and three assists to his name already.
At the same time, Andreas Christiansen and Frank Kessie have also slotted in smoothly into the squad.
The last to join the squad (prior to Marcos Alonso and Hector Bellerin on deadline day) was Jules Kounde, who switched from Sevilla for a fee of €50m.
As Barca faced a few difficulties with registering the centre-back as per La Liga regulations, Kounde could only make the squad’s third league fixture at home against Real Valladolid.
The 23-year-old’s services were coveted by many top clubs in Europe including Chelsea who has been Barca’s direct rivals for a number of transfer targets.
After losing out the likes of Raphinha and Lewandowski to Barca, Kounde became the final player to reject the London side’s advances.
Kounde taunts Chelsea’s struggling start to season?
All these names who preferred the Blaugrana over the Blues would only be happy with their choices now after witnessing Chelsea’s struggles on the pitch.
Three away defeats including their opening group game in the Champions League has led to the dismissal of Thomas Tuchel and the London team really looks to be in trouble now.
While the English side have been embroiled in their own problems, it appeared on Wednesday as if Kounde had applied salt on their wounds.
An image of the Frenchman’s latest Instagram story quickly went viral on Twitter where he was spotted mocking Chelsea and expressing his relief to have joined Barcelona.
The story contained Kounde seated inside an aeroplane, hand in the head along with the caption – “I almost joined them. # ForcaBarca.”
However, as much as how Barca fans would have enjoyed seeing the Frenchman poke fun at their transfer rivals, it looks to have been a fake image cooked up by a street-smart supporter.
While the image seems to have fooled a few major news outlets into mistaking its authenticity, the fan responsible for the clever photoshop appears to have left behind a few mistakes. The footballing community has, of course, not failed to spot these.
For one thing, while Kounde’s caption can be seen in good clarity, his account title at the top left is blurry in the image.
Moreover, the fact that the Barca man was inside an aeroplane just 24 hours before the Catalans host Viktoria Plzen for their UCL game also seems highly out of place.
Instead, Kounde would have been training with the team or have been preparing for the match in another way.
The myth about Kounde’s apparent taunt at Chelsea has been debunked thanks to supporters but just for a few hours, the fan-made image did seem to have the footballing world on a wild goose chase in search of the photo’s authenticity.
