It was a night to forget at Jeddah, where Diego Simeone’s
men stunned Lionel Messi and his friends in the semi-final of Spanishcopa de
Espana. The much anticipated El Clasico did not happen in the finals, but the
Los Blancos outweighed Atleti, yet again to lift the first trophy of 2020.
Surely, the celebration of Los Blancos did not satisfy Lionel Messi and the
Barca camp. Someone had to digest the worse and Ernesto Valverde was the best
option available.
If one says, temperamentally, Barca went on the back foot
when Lionel Messi unnecessarily started a chaotic moment with the young lad
Joao Felix before the half-time. It hampered the focus of the whole team and
boosted the fighting spirit of Atleti to a great extent. The end result showed,
who won when the matter was about showing the real intent!
Since that woeful night at Jeddah, the speculations of
Valverde’s axing gained momentum. Barcelona started searching for their
Zinedine Zidane. They approached Xavi, who declined their invitation and in the
end, former Real Betis head coach Quique Setien has been appointed as the new
manager of Barca and with that, the Valverde era ended in a tragic manner.
Valverde, who led Barcelona to consecutive La Liga titles in
2018 and 2019, ultimately paid the price for a lack of success in the Champions
League. More often in the crucial junctures of Europe’s top competition,
Barcelona blew away chances to get knocked out. While the best boy of Barca
continued to fail in those big matches, none questioned his temperament and
abilities on the big occasions, but saving his status was much more necessary
and thus, Valverde was made the scapegoat. Ask Gonzalo Higuain how it feels!
In teams like Real Madrid and Barcelona, winning the La Liga
title is never enough. You need to win big. Otherwise, the outcomes would be
poor. And the coaches always face very poor consequences. Santiago Scolari was
sacked immediately after that exit against Ajax at home ground, whereas, none
even thought that he was managing a young and fragile unit and deserved time to
fix the problems after the exit of Cristiano Ronaldo. Solari deserved to
complete the full season. His sacking was quite unfair.
Similarly, Valverde should have completed the season.
Valverde had a contract until the end of the season with an option for
another year that no one anticipated activating. More than the manager, it is
the duty of players to deliver on the field. Again, when a so-called alien is
in a team, a team should win everything, isn’t it?
The talk is all about that stunning exit at Rome and
Anfield. Well, if that is the reason then why was not Valverde sacked back
then? What was Barca's hierarchy thinking? Fishing in muddy waters, no?
Sacking a coach in such a fashion is nothing but insulting.
Barca searched one new coach after another like a kid searching for his
favourite toy in a shop in the past few days had been utterly humiliating,
pathetic and childish. And which tells us, Bartomeu does his business in a
brutal manner and does not care about the self-respect of others. In fact, most
club bosses are such!
ESPN FC’s Graham Hunter said, “This is the man (Bartomeu)
who was vice-president and consigliere to the regime when Eric Abidal, having
been publicly promised he'd get a new contract the moment he was back ready to
play after a liver transplant to beat cancer, was then unceremoniously shown
the door as soon as he won his battle and got fit. This is also the man who
sacked his director of football, Andoni Zubizarreta, halfway through a season
in which his Zubizarreta-assembled squad would go on to win a glorious Treble
culminating in the 3-1 Champions League final victory over Juventus.
Zubizarreta's crime? In 2014, when the Camp Nou crowd booed
the giant screen upon which members of the Barca board were congratulating
Lionel Messi on scoring his 253rd La Liga goal, which made him the all-time top
scorer in that competition, Bartomeu needed a sacrificial lamb so he could
convince himself and the media that it was not he who was being booed. So, out
with the Zubi-goose who had laid the golden eggs -- in fact, half a dozen of
them”.
Notice the word “sacrificial lamb” – a Barca policy, which
has been going on and on and does not seem to stop for a minute. And, Valverde
could be termed as one of Barcelona’s sacrificial lamb.
Note: This article has been posted at Cricketsoccer as CSdesk on 14/01/2020 Ernesto Valverde: Barcelona’s sacrificial lamb
Thank You
Faisal Caesar
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