“Profound changes” had been announced, Here they are: after Setién, it is the French “technical secretary” of Barça Eric Abidal (40) who paid for the catastrophic Blaugrana season, the first since 2007 without any title.
During the disintegration of the Catalan season, Eric Abidal, appointed in June 2018 in place of Roberto Fernandez, became the icon of the collapse of Barça’s sporting project, as scandals followed failures on the pitch.
– “Take responsibility for your decisions” –
Under fire of criticism since the beginning of the year 2020, Abidal was notably singled out for his management of the dismissal of former coach Ernesto Valverde, replaced by Quique Setién on January 13. With other leaders, Abidal went to visit Xavi Hernandez, coach of Al-Sadd in Qatar, to offer him the place of Valverde, still in office at that date, but the ex-Barça legend refuses.
A case that will pursue the French until his dismissal : on February 6, superstar Lionel Messi will come out of his usual silence, and post a message on Instagram pto urge his sports director to “take responsibility for his decisions” and to “give names”, after the latter blamed the players for the dismissal of Valverde in an interview.
A bitter end of term for the former left-back or international central defender (67 caps) who had blossomed from his beginnings in this new role of sports director, after retiring from a player in 2014.
“I feel very comfortable”, Abidal commented on his new position, a few months after taking office, his UEFA master’s degree in hand. “As a technician, I have to analyze the situation well internally, have a global vision of the market, measure internally what is feasible and make decisions.”
“(Abidal) is very intelligent and he adapts to situations”, then explained to AFP Clément Lenglet, greeting a sports director who has retained a “player mentality” and who knows how to be convincing. “He is very good at his role and I think he did a very good recruiting.”
– A Barça symbol that is leaving –
The will of Abidal and his deputy Ramon Planes (51), a former leader of Getafe, was well to rejuvenate the Blaugrana workforce, with the arrivals of Brazilians Arthur and Malcom, from the French Clément Lenglet and Jean-Clair Todibo, and the great Dutch hope Frenkie de Jong, cvoiced by all of Europe.
But the last big transfers which bear his seal, in particular those ofOusmane Dembélé (for EUR 138m in 2018) and Antoine Griezmann (for EUR 120m in 2019), did not have the expected return. And the thirty-year-old locker room of Barça, which rubbed shoulders with Abidal during the triumphal era of coach Pep Guardiola, at the turn of the 2010s, has lost faith.
With the departure of Abidal, it’s an icon of FC Barcelona who is leaving, a devoted side who has notably contributed to offering four Ligas and two Champions Leagues (2009 and 2011) to the club.
The second of these two European coronations made him a symbol: when he had just been operated on for the first time for his liver tumor, he had returned at the last minute, at the end of the season, to play the final at Wembley against Manchester United (3-1). Moved by his fight, Captain Carles Puyol had even let him lift the trophy first.
Still stuck in the trial surrounding his tumultuous liver transplant, Abidal is also known in France for having been one of the leaders of the France team’s strike in Knysna during the 2010 World Cup.
But after a two-year term that was off to a good start, the lucky star Abidal leaves the club by the back door.
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