Both Luis Enrique and Quique Sanchez Flores dodged questions on a report claiming their soured relationship is the reason they didn't meet on Saturday ahead of Sunday's Catalan derby between Barcelona and Espanyol.
It is a local tradition for the respective managers of the two clubs to appear before the media for a photo session the day before the game.
Luis Enrique kept up the custom in his first two seasons at Camp Nou, posing for photographs with previous Espanyol managers Sergio Gonzalez and Constantin Galca.
However, he dropped out of Saturday's event, with the official reason given that he didn't have time to fulfil the commitment.
Catalunya Radio offered a different version of events, though, saying that Luis Enrique and Sanchez Flores fell out when they were both playing for Real Madrid in the 1990s.
Inside a fractured dressing room, the report claims, several Madrid players felt that Sanchez Flores was responsible for feeding information about his teammates to Jorge Valdano, who was Los Blancos' coach at the time.
"What I hope is that [on Sunday], which is more important than anything before the game, there will be a good atmosphere on the pitch and in the stadium, that's what's most important," Luis Enrique said in his pregame news conference when questioned about the reason the tradition had been shelved.
Asked two more times about his relationship with his Espanyol counterpart and the cancelling of the photo, he declined to comment.
"I get on well with everyone," Sanchez Flores said when urged to comment on his relationship with Luis Enrique.
"I'm with those that want to be with me. I consider myself a mature person. I'm not a person for these minor matters."
The idea of the meeting is to symbolise that above anything else, the Catalan derby is all about fair play and good relations between the neighbouring clubs.