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The former Betis coach lasted less than a year at the Camp Nou before being dismissed from his post after the collapse of the Champions League in August
Quique Setien has ensured that the decision to dismiss him as Barcelona coach was taken independently of the historic 8-2 capitulation of the Catalans against Bayern Munich.
The former Real Betis manager stepped into the gap at Camp Nou after Ernesto Valverde was fired in January after a Super Cup loss to Atlético de Madrid.
Setien’s charges did not shine, however, handing over the La Liga title to Real Madrid despite being at the top when the new man took office in early 2020 amid a series of disappointing results.
His fate was definitively sealed when Bayern ran wild in the quarterfinals of the Champions League, imposing a resounding defeat to the Blaugrana that caused the coach to be relieved of his duties.
But Setien maintains that he would have been on his way regardless of the result at Lisbon’s Estadio da Luz in August.
“You end up tremendously damaged, you enter the history of Barcelona with that defeat,” he told former Spain coach Vicente del Bosque in an interview with The country.
“I take my share of the blame. Anyway, one day I’ll write about it. After my dismissal I found out that the decision had been made before 8-2. I heard about everything.”
That beating will be the reason why most Barcelona fans remember Setien after his brief and disappointing stint on the bench, and he regrets not having the opportunity to impose his trademark swashbuckling style of play on the team. .
“I wasn’t myself. I couldn’t be, or I didn’t know how to be, that’s the truth,” he added.
“When you sign for a club of the Barça dimension, you already know that things are not going to be easy, despite having the best players in the world.
“The truth is that I could not be myself, nor did I do what I should have done. It is true that I could have taken drastic steps, but that would not have helped me in such a short time as I was there and in which everything condensed after the blockade .
“Until then the team was fine. We had started to change a lot of things. We entered the break with a two-point advantage. When we came back we started well in Mallorca and Madrid’s streak was extraordinary.
“In the end, the tension was too much. But in reality, there are situations that in a different context and under different circumstances could have been different. There was no time to think or to work.”
