Real Madrid playmaker Isco has denied he has any intention of joining Barcelona, and blamed friends for a controversy which escalated on Thursday regarding a photo of a packet of Blaugrana-branded crisps.
On Thursday, Isco, 24, posted an Instagram photo of himself having lunch with friends, with a packet of Barcelona-branded crisps visible among the food on the table. Soon afterwards, the picture was removed and replaced by another one, almost the same, but without the crisps.
La misteriosa bolsa de patatas del Barça en una foto de Isco https://t.co/bCdlqpQlxX pic.twitter.com/skKooULS2r
- MARCA (@marca) April 6, 2017
After further hours of speculation about the photo on social media and within the Spanish media, the second photo was also taken down, with Isco tweeting to reaffirm that he had no intention of joining Barca and that people had read too much into what they had seen.
"I am not going to Barca, you tiresome people," Isco wrote. "With the photo I wanted to say we were having something to eat, with crisps. Hala Madrid."
Que no me voy al barça pesados!! Con la foto queria decir que nos lo vamos a comer con patatas? #HalaMadrid!!
- ISCO ALARCON (@isco_alarcon) April 6, 2017
Isco added that he had not eaten any of the crisps, and claimed he had been set up by some friends.
"Actually, I didn't even try them," he wrote. "It was my friends joking around to get me in trouble."
Por cierto ni las he probado! Han sido mis amigos para meterme caña?
- ISCO ALARCON (@isco_alarcon) April 6, 2017
Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane laughed off the controversy, telling a news conference on Friday: "The thing about the crisps? We know that all this is part of football, what people say off the pitch. But we are just interested on what we do on the pitch. Of course I am happy with what [Isco] said [that he would not join Barcelona]."
All this comes amid uncertainty over the future of the Spain international, whose Madrid contract ends in 2018, with reports claiming that Barca have told him to sit tight and join them on a free transfer at that point.
Isco himself has said more than once that he is not sure what will happen, and he plans to think about the situation at the end of the current campaign.
Speaking ahead of Saturday's La Liga derbi at home to Atletico Madrid, ex-Real striker Fernando Morientes said that he hoped the club's hierarchy and Isco could come to an agreement for him to stay at Santiago Bernabeu for many more years.
"I like him a lot, he's a different type of player," Morientes is quoted as saying by Mundo Deportivo. "One of those who decide games and can do something different in the final third on the pitch, where things really happen. In the end he must decide if he really wants to stay at a team like Real Madrid and have an important or secondary role, depending on the talks with the club.
"I believe that today he is an important player for Real Madrid and I believe that Real Madrid know that he is a useful player. So I hope and would like them to reach an agreement for him to stay many years [at Madrid]."