Former Barcelona vice-president Marc Ingla has revealed that the club met with Jose Mourinho last year and made an approach to re-sign Cesc Fàbregas from Arsenal.While the ex-director confirmed that Pep Guardiola was always the first choice, he did explain that other other trainers were interviews, including the outspoken Portuguese.Mourinho was touted as one of the favourites to replace Frank Rijkaard at Camp Nou in the summer, but it is believed that Joan Laporta and Johan Cruyff were firmly against the idea."In November of 2007 we spoke with Txiki Begiristain and resognised that things needed changing and the defeat against Real Madrid pushed that along," Ingla told Catalunya Radio."We met with Mourinho. He is a phenomenon and was a great coach at Barça, but the option of appointing Guardiola was always the strongest."Begiristain has been quoted as saying that Barça would not make the first move to sign Fàbregas back from Arsenal after the player chose to leave the club of his own accord.But Ingla's view is that is exactly what the Blaugrana did do as they spoke with the Premier League outfit only to discover that Arsène Wenger wanted the midfielder to base his side around."We went to try and sign Cesc, but Wenger wanted him to be the leader of his side and it proved to be impossible," he added. "But we never offered Xavi in exchange."Ingla stepped down from his position this year after a vote of no confidence saw more than half the fans go against the board, but not enough to dislodge them.

Lucas Brown, Goal.com

 

no surprise then that cesc is now wearing the captains armband at arsenal.

mourinho needs to be back in the premiership though...

 

Keep him as far away as possible. Nowadays you can atleast watch Chelsea play for more then a 1-0 victory.

 

he's a character man, he provided me with a lot of laughs over the years.