Koeman, a goodbye announced from day one

Barcelona closed at night one of the great soap operas of the summer, autumn and almost winter. Ronald Koeman, sentenced for months, was dismissed after the defeat of the culé team at the Vallecas stadium and thus ended his status as a ‘provisional’ coach. The Dutchman lived day by day, knowing that the club did not have him and he waited for Joan Laporta to point him.

«I already said that we were opening a period of reflection for Koeman. It is necessary to evaluate what has gone well and what did not of the past campaign “, assured the president on May 31, in the presentation of Sergio Agüero as a Barça footballer. That day, it was clearer than ever that Koeman was not the coach that the culé president liked the most and that he was as a consequence of the serious economic crisis that the club was going through, an obstacle when facing changes on the bench.

Those words were the culmination of the bad relationship that both were going through. Laporta did not ratify the one who was the hero of Barcelona’s first Champions League when he took office as president and neither did he when the team won the Copa del Rey in La Cartuja. That lack of support led to a Koeman who gradually steeled himself and finally exploded at a press conference. «I feel that I have the support of the players. The one from the club? I don’t know, “he said after the defeat against Benfica.

His words led to a new kick forward from Laporta. The president culé ratified Koeman before the game against Atlético in a new provisional decision while several members of his board of directors asked for the head of the coach. The decision had been made but there were no means to carry out changes and only an even greater cataclysm could justify the outlay to change coach with the economic crisis that Barça is going through. So it has been. Barça wanders through the middle zone in the League and has a limit situation in the Champions League. It was the chronicle of a death foretold.