Ronald Koeman, on the Vallecas bench hours before being dismissed. /
FC Barcelona
Laporta dismisses the Dutch coach on the plane back three hours after the defeat suffered against Rayo and the former player is emerging as the tenant of the Barça bench
Three hours after the defeat suffered by Barcelona against Rayo in Vallecas Ronald Koeman was dismissed as coach of the Barça team. Joan Laporta publicly ratified Koeman on October 2 before Barça faced Atlético de Madrid, but the president of the Catalan club already made it clear ten days before his team lost at the Wanda Metropolitano (2-0) that « the coach always depends on the results and the game. Koeman was sentenced and Laporta fired the coach at the stroke of midnight on Barcelona’s return plane from the capital. Xavi Hernández, current Al-Sadd coach, but without a release clause at the Qatari club, is the one chosen by Barça to take over the Barça bench as soon as possible.
Koeman will have to receive 12 million euros net for his dismissal, but the situation at Barcelona was already untenable, when the coach never had the confidence of Laporta, who had to keep him in charge last season when he could not find a replacement. Precisely, since the top Barça leader publicly supported Koeman at the beginning of the month, something that the coach himself asked him to be able to “work more calmly”, Barcelona have failed in all the key games, starting with the defeat at the Metropolitan .
Although Koeman saved a first ‘match ball’ in the Champions League against Dinamo Kiev after two defeats, by 0-3 and 3-0, against Bayern and Benfica, respectively, the Barça team also fell in the classic on Sunday (1-2) and this Wednesday he lost again and was not able to score a penalty against Rayo, which was the finishing touch for the Dutchman. The situation was already untenable. Koeman no longer had any support and even a group of violent rioters tried to attack him on Sunday when he left the Camp Nou with his vehicle, along with his wife, after losing to Real Madrid.
In the Barcelona directive there was no argument whatsoever to support him and from the dressing room he did not find support either. The attitude of the players is one of pure impotence, without courage, without soul, without grit, without game and without physical, tactical and mental consistency. “It is what there is,” Koeman came to say on September 14, after Barça was beaten by Bayern in the Champions League debut, with a statement ratified by captain Gerard Piqué, referring to the undoubted drop in the level of the Barça squad after the unexpected and painful departure of Leo Messi.
Koeman has given opportunities to young footballers, but the Dutch coach has not been able to find solutions in the game or to revitalize the spirit of the team, which is in free fall, with danger of elimination in the group stage of the Champions League and now ninth in the league, six points from the lead, and eight from relegation, with only four victories in ten championship games. From now on, Barcelona clings to the illusion of hiring another myth like Xavi, who was the candidate coach of Víctor Font, one of Joan Laporta’s rivals in the elections. Coincidentally, Koeman was fired this Wednesday, just a year after Josep Maria Bartomeu resigned as president.
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