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Coach Ronald Koeman leaves – is Xavi coming now?

FFor the Catalan daily newspaper La Vanguardia it was a “Requiem in Vallecas”. FC Barcelona played bloodlessly against newly promoted Rayo Vallecano, allowed a much more motivated opponent to take the balls from them and was not even able to score a goal from the penalty spot. In the end it was 1-0 for the club from Madrid’s working-class district, and it was the last game for Ronald Koeman on the coaching chair of FC Barcelona. The team was still on the flight home when the Spanish media reported the Dutchman’s dismissal.

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Koeman coached the club for 14 months, he should renew the team. In the end there are 80 games on his balance sheet, of which 44 wins, 15 draws and 21 defeats. Last season, Barça won the King’s Cup, but only finished third in the league. Even then there was speculation about his continued employment. But now Barça is playing the worst season in a very long time, 15 points from 10 games, the club last started that badly in 1987. It was the time of Bernd Schuster and Gary Lineker, Luis Aragonés was the coach. Unlike Koeman now, he was allowed to stay until May.

Koeman didn’t have it easy in Barcelona. A coach can hardly take over a team at a worse time than last summer. The team had lost important top performers such as Xavi or Iniesta in previous years, and key players such as Piqué, Messi or Luis Suárez, all over 30, seemed to have been a burden for the years.

Long before Koeman was in crisis

At the same time, the financial possibilities had also dwindled. The club had taken on with excessive personnel planning, paid exorbitant salaries and transfer fees for players that fell far short of expectations. For Coutinho or Dembélé, Barça had paid 135 million euros each, for Griezmann 130 million. How should Koeman put together a powerful team?

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