Joan Laporta has been in charge of introducing Sergi Barjuan to the first team squad before training at the Ciutat Esportiva. Tomorrow, Sergi will address the media in the press room of the Ciutat Esportiva on the occasion of the preview of the Barça-Alabès match, in an appearance with President Joan Laporta. Sergi takes over from Koeman, with whom he played, before Xavi arrives. With whom he also played, becoming the fifth interim coach in the history of Barça, after Enric Rabassa, Antonio Romero, Carles Rexach and Toño De la Cruz, the last one in 2003.
Born in Les Franqueses del Vallès in 1971, Sergi has gone from not having a job to being Barça’s coach in a few months. From 2017 to June 2019 he was in China leading a second team, Zhejiang, but after returning he had not found a bench. In a talk by coaches, Sergi admitted that the experience in China was very tough, as he touched on “doing it all from the ground up, the first workout”. “Seeing the tactical level, I thought I didn’t know where I was going to end up, as the players didn’t even know how to profile themselves to receive the ball,” he said. It was not a good experience in sports, but in life. So he returned to Catalonia, where he continued to train as a coach while being seen in paddle tournaments waiting for a job that ended up coming thanks to Laporta. Now it’s his turn to take the bench left by Ronald Koeman, with whom he shared so many adventures as a player. The Dutchman, in fact, was one of those who called him a “pony” when he was a footballer at that Barça in which two strong and fast sides of the house, Albert Ferrer and he, played on the wings. The “ponies”.
Trained in the base football of the Esport Club Granollers, as a young man he was a left winger. He already had legs to be the fastest and became the top scorer many seasons, until he moved to La Masia, where he finished as a winger. He arrived at Barça at the age of six, playing for both the youth team and Barça C of Toño de la Cruz and Barça B. Cruyff discovered him in training and made his debut in November 1993 at the Ali Sami Yen Stadium against the Turkish Galatasaray, when the Turkish stadiums were real hells. Sergi, who was already 22 years old, did not hide in that tie (1-1). And he did not return to the branch, and scored a few goals in all the years he was at Barça. International at the 1994 and 1998 World Cups with Javier Clemente, he won three Leagues and a Recopa and was left with honey on his lips in the 1994 Champions League final against Milan. His career would end at Atletico Madrid, as Van Gaal did not trust him much. Popular with fans, Sergi came out in one episode of the series Location broken in a few years when he was happy. Cruyff understood his potential to act as a modern winger, one of those who comes to the rival area to do his thing with players like Romário, with whom he had a good relationship; it had the box office next to that of the Brazilian.
Cruyffista, but also influenced by Luis Aragonés
As a coach, Sergi’s career is different, as he initially didn’t make the leap, as if he wanted to take a sabbatical year of calm away from football. “Maybe other players, like Guardiola or Simeone, didn’t hide that they wanted to be coaches when they played. I hid it more, but I thought about it. It took me a year to think, to train a little bit,” he explained. In 2009 he would enter La Masia to direct the youth B, until 2011. In 2012, first opportunity away from home, at the Recreativo de Huelva, where he lived them in all colors. The relationship with the president, Pablo Comas, was not entirely good, as he thought a lot about how the team should play. Sergi also did not quite get along with the press and proved to have a sour character when needed. Although he always tried to play the attack, it was an experience in which he had to change things, and managed to leave the team one step away from the play-off of promotion to First his second year. Later it had less luck in the Almeria, with which it lowered to Second; in Mallorca, where it did not last long, and in China. In fact, Sergi is less cruyffista than Xavi, for example. Asked about his style, he explained more than once that “it’s not about being a cruyffista or being a goalkeeper. It’s about having your style, being a sergeant.” He says he learned a lot from Cruyff, but also from Luis Aragonés and César Ferrando, the most defensive technicians he worked with. “I like the style of La Masia, the style of Barça, the one I met, but you add other experiences along the way.” A path that, by surprise, has taken him to the Camp Nou. Where he got when he was 22 as a footballer, when he also looked like he wouldn’t get there.
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