Manchester City set to lose first-team manager to FC Barcelona following Ilkay Gundogan recommendation | OneFootball

FC Barcelona are expected to complete their latest swoop on Manchester City’s first-team operation by taking the club’s ‘Liaison Manager’, it has been reported.

Much of Manchester City’s long-standing successful operation since the takeover by Sheikh Mansour and his investment arm in 2010 has extended far beyond the on-field excellence deployed by the club’s head coaches of the years.

Those in charge at the football club have managed to instil a winning culture, and as part of that is a contentment and happiness among players, staff, and the wider football club through its care system put in place.

For Manchester City’s first-team stars, the club goes above and beyond to ensure that their life away from the football pitch is of a high standard, and that includes how they are looked after and catered for by their employers.

Much of that is down to Manchester City’s first-team support system, and one crucial figure in that ecosystem has now seemingly been snapped up by FC Barcelona in the Catalan club’s latest raid on the Etihad Stadium.

That is according to the information of Jijantes’ Carlos Monfort, who reports that Barcelona are set to bring in a new member of staff to join a ‘Player Support Office’ at the club and, after two meetings and several contacts, they have signed Manchester City’s Daniel Codina.

Codina held the position of ‘First-Team Liaison Manager’ at the Etihad Stadium, but will now make the switch to the Camp Nou club having informed Manchester City of his decision over the course of last week.

Jijantes also reveals that former Barcelona man and current City star, Ilkay Gündogan recommended the implementation of a ‘liaison manager’ upon his arrival at the Catalan club in 2023, ​​insisting that “the support offered at Manchester City is the best in the world”.

But how have Barcelona gone about their business in securing the recruitment of Daniel Codina from one of the most well-run football operations on the planet?

Carlos Monfort reveals that Codina met with Deco and Bojan for a first meeting at Barcelona in mid-November 2024, explaining his way of working in what has been described as ‘an informal job interview’.

After that meeting, Jijantes reports that all parties agreed to meet again in future and Barcelona took advantage of their Christmas break to have a definitive second meeting last week, during which a deal was struck.

For now, it remains to be seen whether Manchester City will publicly comment on the matter, or who they could turn to in order to replace a role that is widely seen as being an important element of the club’s first-team ecosystem.