Ronald Koeman has been here before. No, not Barcelona, where he as a maraud sweeper once drove them majestically to league and European Cup triumphs. The Dutchman once believed in scorched earth, and helped fan flames intended to burn a time that was long established but theoretically “beyond his shelf life.” (That all happened in Valencia during one of the most convulsive, angry, mean and remarkable periods in the modern history of that great club.)
In any case, I have no doubt about that for all the “Welcome home, Ronald!” messages posted by FC Barcelona on Wednesday to note the return of their one-time captain and score one of their all-time iconic goals – to win Barcelona’s first European Cup, at Wembley in 1992 – commemorated the Camp Nou board with crystal clarity about the way Koeman treated the older statesmen in the squad at Mestalla in 2007-08.
Should anyone be in doubt – and probably only those who may not have followed Koeman closely – about how firmly he will treat one of the holy cows in this Barcelona squad, then it’s time to learn some history.
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Then, in Valencia, Koeman succeeded another Quique: Sanchez Flores at that time. Once he had his feet under the table, Koeman announced that a trio of long-serving, linchpin, champion players, David Albelda, Santi Canizares and Miguel Angel Angulo, were all “out.” From his team, without the ability to return, from the training of the first team and from the club, so they would “please tell their agents to start looking for somewhere.” His decision divided the Valencia community, scandalized the president, severely hurt the players and, ultimately, showed most of all that Koeman would follow his principles and the evidence of his own eyes on lengths that other coaches would find intimidating.
It was annoying, brutal and short, to phrase a phrase, because although Koeman somehow galvanized the rest of the Valencia team in winning the Copa del Rey, and defeated Barça along the way, his league form had them above the relegation zone. hoeven and he was fired in April 2008, not quite six months after taking up the post.
A few years ago, when asked if he regretted his actions, Koeman said, rather typically, “If I had to do something similar again in my career, I would do it, but maybe in a slightly different way. “I matured.”
Albelda, while reading the interview, commented that in 2014 people started talking about Koeman succeeding Tata Martino. The former Valencia captain had clear ideas on the subject, tweeting: “Hopefully Koeman will take over at Barcelona one of these days – that will make it easier for everyone else to compete with them for La Liga.”
For Albelda, Angulo and Canizares then, should we read Gerard Pique, Jordi Alba, Sergio Busquets, Luis Suarez, Ivan Rakitic and Arturo Vidal now?
More or less: yes.
Eighteen months ago, Koeman, who is still an acrobatic critic of what he dislikes and still has a sharp, intelligent football family, used a Catalan TV interview to point out that he felt the back of the Barcelona team, with the exception of Marc -Other Ter Stegen, self replacement needed. Positive means Pique, Busquets and Suarez. What has recently become clear is that FC Barcelona’s presidential election will be held in the spring; the current board will retire because in legal terms their time is up (long after their football limit was reached); and elections will bring new Camp Nou management.
All indications are that the most popular candidate, turn-back-the-clock-to-Cruyff-principles candidate is Victor Font who, if all goes well, should win the presidency. He is fully committed to persuading Xavi to take over as coach: Xavi would like Jordi Cruyff and Carles Puyol (plus Busquets, if he can be persuaded) to be part of his football structure. That means the current coach, who will now probably still be Koeman, is out.
More than that, Font made it clear that even if Xavi was not available for some reason, he is not a fan of Koeman who is in the lead. Thus, this iconic, bilingual, but football-qualified Dutchman has a very short approach to what he has considered his dream job for a very, very long time.
Sure, Koeman has had the chance before and missed it. When Joan Laporta won the crucial presidential election in 2003, he was advised by both Txiki Begiristain, his director of football, and Cruyff that Koeman was an ideal candidate to begin rebuilding. The brave Ronald was then at Ajax and was not ready to stop, especially with things that looked rosy at the time in Amsterdam and a long road of perfection at the Camp Nou. When the Amsterdammers told Barcelona that they could not have Koeman without buying out the rest of his contract, the price was too high for Laporta, who just found out that the financial turmoil at the club was far greater than expected.
So if you have a lot of sympathy to spare, think softly of this 57-year-old who may be learning the truth behind the centuries-old aphorism “be careful what you want.” Because Koeman has at most a year to impress his vision on this squad, how it trains, how it plays and, most importantly, WSO plays, there may be a need for him to be bubbly. He might have to remind himself of his promise, made in 2014, that if he has to deal with the task of sending holy cows to pasture, he will confront it with more tact, wit and maturity.
The brutal fact is that it will indeed be very difficult for Barcelona to do the kind of business they want to carry out to assassinate the old regime. Even if there are clubs that want to benefit from the glittering and accumulated winning experience of players like Busquets, Suarez, Pique, Alba, Rakitic or Vidal, they are the same clubs that can afford to pay a decent fee, plus heavy wages? And are they at the same time clubs that can attract these Camp Nou legends to leave their footballing nirvana?
These are big, big questions. What is clear, however, is that Koeman by definition wants to achieve a few things fairly quickly.
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Steve Nicol says Ronald Koeman is a sensible replacement for Quique Setien as Barcelona manager.
For starters, he wants intense, athletic, coach-supervised training sessions, in which the emphasis is heavily on positional play, pressure, passing the ball quickly and moving for return. He wants the middle of the team, in particular, to be handed over to Frenkie De Jong, and if Koeman tried to re-establish his partnership with Donny van de Beek, you would not be surprised. But how will he finance that?
As the new coach of Barcelona, Koeman will not be ashamed to use younger, up-and-coming footballers, as long as he thinks they have the football training, sharp technique and a complete willingness to follow his tactical instructions. He has probably been at his most successful when the players on his charge follow him, when they are either young and enthusiastic and ready to learn or already full of the knowledge that he can make them better, get victories and trophies which other managers can.
Whether Koeman is a man-manager of subtlety who will be patient with the old guard if they refuse to leave in this transfer market … well, that’s a really big and potentially explosive question.
Not that anyone should underestimate him. There have been important sayings about his career. Trophies of one kind or another at Ajax, PSV, Benfica and AZ Alkmaar, and he had started to make the Netherlands competitive again after missing the last Euros in 2016 and the last World Cup in 2018.
Another example comes from when I interviewed Virgil van Dijk last summer. I told Van Dijk that I believed he was ready to play trophy-winning elite football from the days I saw him play with Celtic. I claimed he could and should have directly, from Parkhead to Anfield. He told me he did not agree. He explained that while being coached by Koeman at Southampton, he felt approached, felt that the treatment of the training ground was too harsh and was currently taking revenge. In hindsight, he knew, with complete clarity, that Koeman had changed him, improved him, made him stricter, made him shy and gave Liverpool a better player.
Which version of Koeman we will get now that he is, at long last the Barcelona coach is not completely under his control.
Around him is some approaching footballing chaos. For him, before football even begins, a potentially harmful and debilitating few weeks transfer business. And in the immediate future, there is what feels like an all-or-nothing meeting with Leo Messi to determine what the woeful man thinks of the new big man.
From that moment on, things could spiral down and get out of control, or potentially give Koeman something to build on. He should be better on top form, in personal, football and energy terms, seeing that what lies ahead for him looks wonderfully daunting. And, even though the clock is ticking.
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