Barcelona situation: Sack the coach or kick out 20 players

Barcelona situation: Sack the coach or kick out 20 players

Lluís Mascaró

Director de Información Deportiva de Prensa Ibérica

| sport

Koeman will probably pay for the broken dishes. As Valverde or Setién did at the time. Because the coach is the weakest link in the chain. And because it is easier to fire a coach than twenty footballers. Koeman is not the culprit of Barça’s situation. The opposite. Koeman has been the solution for many months. Koeman resurrected a dying team and has led them to the gates of the double ... when all of Barcelonismo predicted a transition season without titles. Koeman has dealt with a triple sporting, economic and institutional crisis, exercising leadership and responsibility that was not expected of him. It is clear that Koeman is not the problem. The problem is not on the bench, but on the pitch. The problem is not the coach, but the players. Eight of the starters who were humiliated by Bayern in the Champions League nine months ago were also starters on Tuesday in this ridicule against Levante. And that is precisely the problem. And no other. The revolution that was to take place last summer was only a half step. And a project for the future cannot be built on rotten foundations. It is Bartomeu's poisoned inheritance, which Laporta must now manage as best he can.

The first sporting decision of great importance that the new president will have to make (beyond Messi's renewal) is to decide whether or not to continue with Koeman, who has one year left on his contract. The Dutchman is not "his" coach. He never has been. Although he has respected him and has even shown his trust publicly despite the doubts that he has expressed in private. The double would have forced Laporta to keep Koeman but the KO in the league gives him the perfect excuse to dismiss him. To start creating his own Barça with another coach. But what coach? And with which players? These are the two big questions that do not have, at the moment, an answer. We'll see if Koeman is able to convince Laporta, in the imminent face-to-face meeting, that he can lead the club into the future.

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