In October 2007, Ronald Koeman started as a coach in Valencia. Soon he was sorting out three club legends, including goalkeeper Santi Cañizares and captain David Albelda. For this he relied on the 19-year-old Éver Banega and Juan Mata. The season slipped into strife and chaos. Against all odds, Valencia won the Spanish Cup in April, but Koeman was sacked five days later.
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A blueprint for next year at FC Barcelona?
The Dutch bond coach is there after the Quique Setién is dismissed shortly before the takeover. “Yes, I would like to, but it won’t be definitive until everything is signed,” he said at noon at the Dutch association’s headquarters in Zeist. Koeman, 57, is said to have a special release clause there, just in case his ex-club Barça inquires.
In the evening, club president Josip Maria Bartomeu confirmed the interest in Koeman. “If nothing goes wrong, Koeman will be Barca’s head coach next season,” he was quoted as saying on the Barcelona Twitter channel. Nevertheless, there are still a few things to negotiate. It doesn’t come in the simplest of times, a few days after 2: 8 against Bayern Munich.
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Barcelona are looking for someone who sweeps with an iron broom like Koeman did in Valencia. In addition to the badly ailing President Bartomeu, who refuses to resign immediately, after years of indulgence, the players have moved into the focus of the court of shards. For the desired “extensive renovation of the first team” and because of the financial hardship resulting from the corona pandemic, Barça has to sell. It currently maintains the most expensive wage slip in world football, starting with Lionel Messi with around 100 million euros gross.
For the first time in many years, the trainer should also be more than a vicarious agent. Scenes like the one from January 2015 shouldn’t be repeated. At that time, Messi skipped a practice session out of anger with coach Luis Enrique, whereupon he was on the verge of failure and only stayed in office through the mediation of other stars such as Xavi Hernández. The Champions League win that same summer strengthened the system of player power, but it turned out to be a chimera. Annual away disasters in the European Cup followed, which now culminated in Lisbon.
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Great past in the club
Favorite Koeman has an eventful career as a club coach at Vitesse Arnhem, Ajax Amsterdam, Benfica Lisbon, Eindhoven, Valencia, Alkmaar, Feyenoord Rotterdam, Southampton and Everton. Seldom has his work been so unanimously praised as it was recently with the national team, which he led back from the international second division. For the Barça community he is not the undisputed savior, as Xavi, who was waiting for a better moment in Qatar, would have been. But not the worst solution either: He has a great past at the club.
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In 1989 he came at the explicit request of coach Johan Cruyff as the second most expensive player in club history after Maradona. The Libero acted as head of defense as well as the first playmaker, his precise passes were as essential for the “dream team” as his 67 goals in the league alone in six years. Last but not least, Koeman is the “hero of Wembley”, whose free-kick goal in extra time against Sampdoria Genoa in 1992 meant the longed-for first triumph in the most important European cup.
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After Cruyff, Louis van Gaal and Frank Rijkaard, if the contract is concluded, he will now be the fourth coach from the country that Barcelona always looks at in crisis situations. Because the Dutch propagate the style of play implanted by Cruyff, because they are brave, because they stand for modernity and renewal. So exactly what Setién promised – but did not deliver.
In contrast, Koeman said on Catalan TV in early 2019: “We are Dutch, we are not afraid to bring young people.” The already newly signed winger Pedri, 17, and Trincão, 20, like the club talents Riqui Puig, 20, and Ansu Fati, 17, who were recently ignored by Setién in an incomprehensible way, will be happy. Frenkie de Jong could also imagine worse coaches than his supporter from the national team on his way to take over the scepter in Barça midfield.
New elections in March 2021
For the badly ailing Bartomeu, Koeman means the “last dribble” (“La Vanguardia”) to bring a screwed up term of office to a halfway conciliatory end. The chances are about as big as with a tired winger who starts the entire opposing defense again in stoppage time. But if you can blame him for everything else, it is not a lack of stamina. And a commitment from Koeman is almost a coup if you consider the framework conditions.
The President scheduled the next ballot for March 2021 on Monday. He himself will not win it because he is no longer allowed to compete. This means: a successor, who may be campaigning with his own coaching candidate like Xavi, could fire Koeman immediately. For the sake of fairness, Bartomeu even wanted to have the corresponding passage built into Koeman’s contract, which is one of the reasons why the conclusion may be dragging on.
Koeman: “Changes are needed”
If the bond coach agrees, then he swaps the uncertainty about the near future of national football (because of the pandemic he has not yet coached a game in 2020) for that of even medium-term job security. In contrast, from the point of view of the – few – remaining optimists at Barça, the situation is downright comfortable: Koeman is doing the dirty work. If he is successful in parallel, all the better. If not, the successor will find at least one cleared field.
At the beginning of 2019 Koeman made a fiery plea for reform: “Suárez is over 30, Messi is over 30, Piqué is over 30, Busquets is over 30. You may have a few more years, but after that? Changes are needed, because these are important positions. the whole axis. You will then have a goalkeeper, but no head of defense, no six, no center forward and no Messi. Well then, good luck! “
He will need it.
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