‘My heart is in the right place’: Joao Cancelo responds to fall-out claims as he prepares to face Manchester City

Joao Cancelo has insisted that his heart is always in the right place, as he prepares to face Manchester City in the Champions League.

Cancelo is on loan at Bayern Munich after asking to leave Manchester City in January. Both Cancelo and Pep Guardiola played down talk of a rift in training, but reports in Germany suggest that the full-back hasn’t taken kindly to being left out of the team at times during his time at Bayern.

With one goal and four assists in 11 appearances for Bayern to date, Cancelo described his start to life at the Allianz Arena as positive, but alluded to sometimes facing hardships due to his ‘transparent’ personality.

“I see my start at Bayern as positive,” he told the club’s website. “With footballers, there is always a certain adjustment period. That’s why I tried to integrate myself into the team as quickly as possible, to get to know the new colleagues and the system. At team level and at personal level everything is going very well so far.”

“Sometimes it is said that I may not have a very simple personality. But my heart is in the right place. And you can always count on me.

“It’s difficult to explain. I’ll try. I’m very impulsive and sentimental and quite possibly easy to read because I always express what I feel. Transparent people like me don’t always have it easy in today’s fast and unforgiving world.”

Regarding Bayern’s prospects this season, where they will soon come up against City in the Champions League quarter-finals, Cancelo said the German side are confident of beating anyone in their attempts to win the competition.

“There are three, four, five clubs that stand for themselves – and FC Bayern is of course one of them,” he explained.

“Teams like FC Bayern, Manchester City and Real Madrid are always tough to beat and are favourites to win the Champions League every season. It’s an honour for me to be here. We can take on anyone. We can beat any team. Everyone and everything at FC Bayern is focused on absolute success. Here you work really hard in every single training session – I really like this mentality. I’m happy to be here and to play in this great team.”