Pep Guardiola didn’t exactly hold back when asked about Claudio Echeverri’s uncertain future at Bayer Leverkusen, and honestly, the whole situation is starting to look a bit messy.
Softfootball reported that Bayern Leverkusen saw off competition from the likes of Dortmund to land the exciting star, but he has largely struggled since moving to Germany, and with Echeverri barely getting minutes, only around 240 in the Bundesliga so far, talk is heating up that Manchester City might drag him back from his loan as early as January.
But when the question came up in Guardiola’s pre-Leverkusen press conference, he brushed it aside with a slightly cheeky response, as revealed by Fabrizio Romano via his official X account.
Despite the jab, Guardiola was quick to make it clear that the club still rates the 19-year-old attacking midfielder extremely highly, sounding half protective and half fed up.
He posted:
Pep Guardiola on recalling Claudio Echeverri: It’s a question for his beautiful agent….
We have an incredible appreciation about him as a player, and what happened in Leverkusen, you have to ask, I don’t know. His agent knows more than everyone.
Echeverri, nicknamed the Little Devil back home in Argentina, joined City from River Plate in January 2024 with big expectations hovering around him. City loaned him back for a bit, then moved him to Leverkusen this season, believing that they would give him proper first-team exposure in Germany.
But things clearly haven’t gone according to plan. Instead of steady development, he’s been stuck on the edges, barely featuring in games that seemed tailor-made for him. Guardiola has other pressing problems, as he earlier addressed the absence of reliable midfield asset Rodri ahead of the encounter.
Now, with January creeping closer, Guardiola’s comments make it pretty obvious that City won’t sit on their hands if the situation stays the same.
Any final decision seems to depend on conversations with the player’s camp, and that probably means more back-and-forth with the same agent Pep side-eyed earlier. If nothing changes soon, a recall isn’t just possible. It’s starting to feel a bit likely.
