‘Knowing Marc’… Ivan Rakitic speaks out on Ter Stegen–Raphinha scuffle | OneFootball

The mood at FC Barcelona today will be quite euphoric as the Blaugranes beat Borussia Dortmund 4-0 in the first leg of the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League 2024-25 last night.

This big win only went on to showcase the very good from that Catalans have been enjoying this season. This form has been particularly excellent since the start of 2025, as Hansi Flick’s team has been unbeaten this year so far.

However, a few draws have kept them from keeping a perfect record in this period, and one such draw came only in the last league game against Real Betis, as the game against Los Verdiblancos at the Montjuic ended 1-1.

One of the main talking points from this game came after the full-time whistle, as Raphinha was engaged in a tense verbal argument with the referee and one of his linesmen.

Trying to avoid further escalation, first Hansi Flick tried to calm the Brazilian down, while Marc Andre Ter Stegen, the first captain of the Catalan team, also tried to do the same.

However, his efforts to calm Raphinha resulted in the Brazilian pushing him, and the German pushed him back to get him to the tunnel, as some scenes caught on camera show.

The matter seemed to have ended there, as neither of the two players commented on it in public afterwards. However, as MARCA has reported, the former Barcelona midfielder Ivan Rakitic believes the two players would have continued their argument inside the tunnel as well.

The Croatian star believed so mainly because of his knowledge of Ter Stegen’s personality, as he commented:

“I would have liked to see what happened in the locker room, because, knowing Marc (Ter Stegen), the discussion continued off-camera.”

Ivan Rakitic spent several years playing with Ter Stegen, as both of them played together for Barcelona between 2014 and 2020, and thus knows him quite well. But the Blaugrana fans will be hoping the matter is now at an end, even if it had continued in the tunnel and the two captains pushed each other only in the heat of the moment.