Ronald Koeman battles chaos and uncertainty as Barcelona step into unknown
“Ronald Koeman has the ability to create a real team bond and understanding,” Ryan Babel begins to The Independent, before adding the kicker: “but he definitely has a big job to try and create a new kind of Barcelona.”
The Netherlands international rattled off his former manager’s strengths: “quickly changing things tactically, bringing a good energy back to the group, instilling discipline,” but acknowledged “Barca are a different beast. These days, you don’t get very long to build something there. Many coaches have tried and failed.”
Koeman is the club’s sixth manager since Pep Guardiola departed and inherits a divided, dysfunctional mess.
A spin cycle of sporting directors, a series of big-money missteps in the market, no holistic squad planning and a summer of very public discontent is perhaps why no-one seems certain as to what the 57-year-old can conjure in the Camp Nou dugout.
Lionel Messi stays, but the fairytale story between him and his footballing love has had its happily ever after ripped apart.
The club’s third highest goalscorer and his closest friend, Luis Suarez, is gone. And not just anywhere too - after securing a Champions League four league titles and four cups - he is now Diego Simeone’s to unleash at Atletico Madrid after yet another Barca oversight.
Ivan Rakitic, Arturo Vidal, Nelson Semedo and Arthur Melo are also out. Thus far, only 30-year-old midfielder Miralem Pjanic has been added as a senior signing which doesn’t do much for the task of freshening up an ageing squad.
There have been more transfer talk columns than there have been successful negotiations for new faces and Barca’s priority has been to shift players and trim the wage bill.
Not that blockbuster buys would suddenly
The club’s three most expensive recruits - Antoine Griezmann, Ousmane Dembele and Philippe Coutinho - were brought in to the tune of £363 million, but without proper strategy.
To pinch Messi’s words to Goal about his initial decision to leave Barca, communicated by the now famous burofax, “the truth is that there has been no project or anything for a long time, they juggle and cover holes as things go by.”
All the fingers have been pointed at president Josep Maria Bartomeu, whose future will now be decided by a vote at the start of November. If he loses, that doesn’t just spell disaster for him and the board, but Koeman too.
Victor Font, an early favourite to succeed Bartomeu, wants Xavi Hernandez as coach. Time has been against recent Barca managers, but never like this and never with so much of the earth scorched.
Koeman has spoken positively about the tactical intelligence, intensity and greater conditioning he has observed during pre-season. But the real analysis starts when Barca host Villarreal in their La Liga opener on Sunday, while the true challenge will come at the first sign of struggle with the evidence sought in every facial expression and change in body language from Messi.
Koeman has shown cajones to ruthlessly snip away some big figures in the dressing room, particularly Suarez, but that will not have aided his popularity. Necessary change is rarely comfortable but it seems like he is more foe than friend now, whereas he was largely adored by his national roster.
Babel, like the rest of his Holland team-mates, were gutted to lose Koeman as manager, but were overjoyed to see him step into his dream job.
They wished him the best of luck - and boy, is he going to need it because this genre is very much the opposite. Last year, in an interview with Dario Sport, Koeman commented on Barca no longer being football’s ultimate force.
“Nothing is eternal and you have to know how to renew yourself,” he said. “And sometimes you have to understand that to dominate again, first you have to spend a few years in the desert.”
That is not what Messi wants, and by extension, not what Barca want. Moreover, years are not what Koeman has. The countdown to the new season is on, as is the countdown to how long the club legend is kept on.
