Khusanov’s bench story is just another ‘shampoo’ joke among city fans

A fan account of Manchester City recently posted a humorous take on Pep Guardiola benching Abdukodir Khusanov, suggesting it all stemmed from a language mix-up during a training session. The joke was shared on the Real Talk Manchester City X page.

According to the post, during a March training session, Guardiola embraced Khusanov and told him, “You are a champion.” Instead of responding with “You too are a champion,” Khusanov mistakenly said, “You are shampoo.” Guardiola, allegedly interpreting it as a joke about baldness, reportedly benched Khusanov indefinitely as a result.

Ruben Dias, trying to mediate, explained that Khusanov mispronounced the word due to language barriers, but Guardiola refused to reconsider.

However, it turns out this incident never actually happened. The post was part of City fans’ recurring “shampoo” humor series, which had previously been applied to several other players, including Leroy Sané.