The clouds are black over Catalonia and more particularly Camp Nou. After two consecutive draws against modest Granada and Cadiz, and despite the 3-0 victory against Levante this weekend, FC Barcelona again sank in the Champions League against Benfica.
Too much disillusionment for Ronald Koeman? For the Spanish press, this is a big “yes”. The Iberian sports dailies used strong words to explain this new Catalan disappointment.
“Nightmare”, thus headlines the newspaper Sport in its edition of this Thursday, “Another painful rout in Europe. Barça’s qualification for the knockout stages of the Champions League is in jeopardy after a heavy defeat in Lisbon.” After two days, the Blaugranas are last in Group E with 0 points before an already crucial double confrontation against Dynamo Kiev.
Same story for AS with the following title: “Sunk”. “Barça collapses again in Lisbon”, writes the Spanish newspaper. “Total loss”, evokes for his part Marca, “Benfica is sweeping Barca away.”
While for his part, Mundo Deportivo believes that Barça is “on the ropes.” For the Catalan newspaper, “This new defeat for Barça shakes Koeman a little more and the team is already very close to elimination.”
The end is near for Koeman
Already weakened by the rumors of dismissal, Koeman was again strongly criticized by the Iberian press this Thursday morning. “The continuity of Koeman is more in doubt than ever. His credit is exhausted, he is on the brink of a precipice. The Dutchman has few arguments to defend his position. If he is still on the bench for Barca, it is probably because the question of his replacement has not yet been resolved “, explains Marca.
For the newspaper Sport, his departure is only a matter of hours: “Koeman’s future hangs by a thread. The club didn’t want to make a decision in the heat of the moment last night and are taking a few hours to think about it.”, can we read in a daily newspaper which announces that a summit meeting even took place last night to decide the future of the Dutchman, specifying that the end seems inevitable.
For the Spanish press, the favorites to his succession are still Xavi and Roberto Martinez but Sport specifies all the same that the name of Andrea Pirlo also circulates in the spans of Camp Nou. But even though he’s the favorite to succeed Koeman, Marca remains skeptical about Xavi’s return: “There are two problems when he arrives: the compensation that should be paid to the Dutchman and the fact that Xavi probably does not want to take over a team in this state. He probably does not want to take responsibility for it. ‘a bad year. “
