The ex-Barca defender has just been appointed as the new boss, but it is likely that he will retire in less than a year
Barcelona has a new coach and a new project, but no one is crazy. Things will not be going well at the club for a while and no matter how restless you think this year has been so far, more excitement is on the way.
President Josep Maria Bartomeu refused calls from fans and media to resign after Barca’s 8-2 Champions League clash with Bayern Munich, instead of axing coach Quique Setien, before sporting director Eric Abidal left with mutual consent.
The only small concession Bartomeu made to his number of doubters was to advance the elections to March 2021, but he and his board will still effectively govern the club next season.
Now was the time for change, as Gerard Pique explained in the word. Bartomeu agreed, but decided it did not matter to him and instead needed others to make room, with Ronald Koeman hired as Barcelona’s new coach.
Abidal went to lunch with Setien on Monday to tell the coach he was released while the board debated how to get out of another fine mess, but by Tuesday the Frenchman was out the door, leaving Ramon Planes at the transfer wheel .
The director will be working with new coach Koeman, but unless Barcelona can raise money from sales, there is not much room for major game-changing reinforcements.
The truth is, this new project was probably condemned from the beginning.
Victor Font is the frontrunner to be the next president of the club and he has set out to bring in legend Xavi as coach. That, any decisions Koeman makes can become annoying and irrelevant, in the space of a year.
“We should be grateful that Koeman wants to come to Barcelona in these circumstances, but it is a pity,” Font said on Tuesday night. RAC1 radio.
‘He is coming for a project without structure and no future. It is a risk that must be avoided. If we get to the top (in the election), we will not bet on him as our manager. ‘
But Bartomeu made his bed and now we are here.
There will be a lot sold, with the president on Tuesday night in an interview on Barca TV, saying that the only untouchable players at the club are Leo Messi, Marc-Andre ter Stegen, Frenkie de Jong, Nelson Semedo, Clement Lenglet, Antoine were Griezmann and Ansu Fati.
That means the likes of Luis Suarez, Jordi Alba, Ivan Rakitic, Arturo Vidal, Gerard Pique & Co. are in the shop window, and if their pay is not too big a block, there will be many takers. That it makes it so obvious that Barcelona are desperate to free themselves from most of their squad is not the best way to get a good price for your assets, but they have never been a good sales club.
Bartomeu who stays and hires Koeman is the move of a blissful eye gambler who wants to spin one more spin on the roulette wheel at closing time to try to stop a losing streak, after spending most of her life saving already lost (on Philippe Coutinho, Ousmane Dembele and Griezmann).
Somehow the Dutchman is a good fit, in that Barcelona like men hire with history at the club, and Koeman has that in spades.
The Champions League is the trophy they are so desperate to win that Messi desires the most, and Koeman is the man who brought it to Barcelona first. The Dutch defender rifled a free kick in extra time to give Barcelona a 1-0 victory over Sampdoria at Wembley in 1992 and ended decades of rest in the Catalan capital.
He really claims Barcelona, with a clause built into his contract with the Dutch national team allowing him to leave for the Catalan giants, and has never hidden his desire to not coach them one day.
Although he rejected her in January after Ernesto Valverde was fired, the landscape has changed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Euro 2020 was pushed back a year and depending on how the global health outlook is, the chances are that it might not even happen. Meanwhile, it was now or never for Koeman at Barca; the train passed and he jumped on board.
Yet in other respects, hiring Koeman looks like another disaster that will wait to happen. He has not flourished at club level in his managerial career. He had a disastrous spell at Everton that saw them sit in the relegation zone – and Sam Allardyce was his replacement who came in to save the day.
Perhaps the only way for Koeman to win is to do the best rebuilding job he can, trim the dead leaves of the squad and push green shoots like Ansu Fati and Riqui Puig. Whether he will accept that as his duty is another matter, since he dreamed of succeeding at Camp Nou and playing youngsters, is unlikely to get an immediate shine.
That also plays on Messi’s head. Rebuilds do not normally lead directly to silverware. At 33, he enters the final phase of his career and has to choose between destroying his legacy of one club man or never winning the Champions League.
At least he understands what Barcelona’s biggest struggles are on the field. Talk to you soon Diario Sport during the lockdown, Koeman pointed out how hard they find it to maintain the same intensity as teams like Liverpool manage for 90 minutes.
Whether he can change that immediately remains to be seen, but most would not guess. That, however, did not stop Bartomeu from throwing his last few chips on the table.
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