Gabriel Jesus said he decided to leave Manchester City when head coach, Pep Guardiola, made him cry after leaving him out of the starting lineup in a Champions League game.
The Brazilian international worked under Guardiola for five years at the Etihad Stadium before joining Arsenal last summer, a move he said made him feel “free.”
Speaking to the “Denilson show” podcast, Jesus said the turning point in his City career came during their home game against Paris Saint-Germain in November 2021 where he was named on the bench.
“There was a Champions League game, PSG, at home, in which he put [Oleksandr] Zinchenko as a false 9. Crazy thing,” Jesus said.
“The day before, he didn’t even use him [Zinchenko] in training, he had put me in as a striker… Zinchenko even joked with me: ‘that day I felt bad for you.’,” he added.
“Two hours before the game, there’s a team talk, the team eats, rests for 30 minutes and goes to the game. He told us the team… I didn’t even eat. I went straight to the room, crying, I called my mother to talk: ‘I want to leave.’ I’m going home, because he put him [Zinchenko] on, and he didn’t put me on. He put a left-back there. I went crazy,” he stated.
Jesus replaced Zinchenko in the second half of the game and set up the equaliser before scoring a late winner to give City a 2-1 win.
“I didn’t warm up,” Jesus added. “I felt bad. Five minutes after [Kylian] Mbappe scored the goal for 1-0, he [Guardiola] called me. I gave an assist and scored; we turned it around 2-1. In the next [Champions League] game [a 2-1 win at RB Leipzig], I thought I was going to play, and I didn’t play.
“There was a lot of that with him [Guardiola], and it’s not easy. But one [player] evolves. It is really hard. That’s when I decided, I didn’t want to stay anymore. And I decided to leave.”