NEW BARCA BOSS FEELS PRESS-URE
IF he weren’t such a serious looking fella there would have been a comic moment of light relief when Ernesto Valverde was asked what he expected to be the hardest part of becoming the new Barcelona boss.
“Press conferences” he said, in the middle of one of the most eloquent, polished, articulate and patient press conferences a Barcelona manager has given in recent times.
It sounded like Fred Astaire saying he had a phobia of dancing, spats and top hats.
Luis Enrique neither liked nor trusted the media. Point full stop.
Pep Guardiola took Marcelo Bielsa’s (rotten) advice never to give one-on-one interviews and instead wore himself out giving long and increasingly frustrated press conferences.
Louis van Gaal left his final Barcelona press conference in tears, Tata Martino was friendly but overwhelmed by the fact nobody seemed to know who he was.
Maybe Valverde had it right – coping with a rampant Real Madrid, managing world-class talents such as Messi, Neymar, Suarez, Pique and Iniesta, investing multi-millions in the transfer market for the first time, learning how to recapture Barcelona’s successes – nothing compared to dealing with the media.
In fairness, you could understand his point.
Even despite the fact he could knock any politician and most public speakers into a cocked hat with his assured “I’m listening” attitude to dealing with a media multitude on the most high-profile day in his long career.
Earlier yesterday, before doors opened, the former Athletic Bilbao gaffer had taken a little wander around Barca’s Nou Camp museum and it made him draw breath. The history, the trophies, the standards, his predecessors.
He’d said yes to the club that had flirted with signing him three times before, because he believed he could “add something”. But once the ink was drying on the contract … the reality set in like lightning.
He added: “I say press conferences because here there’s a pressure to win constantly and it’s the media who transmit that to you every day.
“My key task is if there are conflicts with the media they mustn’t affect the players.”
Valverde knows that this is a club, a media environment too, where success has turned heads.
At a time when Madrid are focused, unified and enjoying working hard there have been players at Barcelona who’ve become complacent on a diet of pretty much perpetual success from 2005 until now.
Valverde said: “The bar has been set very, very high by my predecessors here and that means for me the task is much bigger.
“What I have to prioritise is progress – keeping the Barcelona style and ideology but adding to it.
“I hear about egos in the dressing room but if you want to win at the highest level you need that internal impulse to be the best.
“What I know, in terms of attitude, is there aren’t any footballers who were born millionaires – you have to earn things.”
Big job. Big profile. Big salary. Gigantic test.