Eric Abidal
Barca director in furious row with Messi
Eric Abidal is a hugely popular personality at Barcelona, thanks to his part in the Champions League victories of 2009 and 2011 and his recovery from life-threatening liver cancer to resume his playing career. But the Frenchman’s role as a unifying figure at Camp Nou has been placed in doubt after Barca’s director of football clashed with the club’s untouchable superstar, Lionel Messi.
After a tumultuous few weeks – during which Ernesto Valverde was sacked and replaced as coach by Quique Setien, the team experienced a run of poor results, and the directors were criticised for a disappointing January transfer window – Abidal came under pressure to defend himself and the club’s hierarchy.
In an interview with Catalan newspaper
Spor t, Abidal effectively accused the senior players of downing tools to get Valverde sacked. In doing so he exposed deep fault lines at the club.
“There are things that I can smell as a former player,” he said in the controversial article. “I watched the games and didn’t look at the result. I looked at how the games were played, the tactics and the work of the players who didn’t play much. I looked at those details.
“Many players were not satisfied or weren’t working hard and there was also an internal communication issue.
“I told the club what I thought and they had to make a decision.”
Valverde was dismissed in mid-January and replaced by former Real Betis boss Setien, but Abidal explained the move was in the works for about a month.
“It was a club decision,” he said. “But we already saw that the problem was
“When players are talked about, names should be given because, if not, we are all being dirtied and it feeds comments that are made and are not true” Lionel Messi
internal. It’s never easy to make these decisions, but after El Clasico on December 18 we began to specify things surrounding his departure.”
Setien, an advocate of attacking football, is seen as being more in tune with Johan Cruyff’s coaching ideals than his predecessor Valverde, who claimed back-to-back Liga titles but won few points for artistic impression.
“He [Setien] has the DNA,” Abidal argued. “He has the idea of working on the small details and players who aren’t playing feel part of the group.
“Communication has to flow, and this makes the team come together and compete better.”
Abidal’s comments drew a furious, immediate and highly unusual response from Messi. Within 90 minutes of the interview going online, the Argentinian used his Instagram account to express his frustration.
He posted an image of the Abidal interview, circled the particular quote about player work rates in red ink and commented underneath: “Sincerely, I don’t like to do these things but I think that people have to be responsible for their jobs and own their decisions.
“The players [are responsible] for what happens on the pitch and we are the first to admit when we haven’t been good. The heads of the sports department have to take their responsibilities too and above all own the decisions they make.”
“Finally, I think that when players are talked about, names should be given because, if not, we are all being dirtied and it feeds comments that are made and are not true.”
It was an angry response from a player who has been carrying Barcelona for some time and prompted the inevitable speculation about his future. The 32year-old’s contract runs until 2021 but contains a clause which allows him to leave for free this summer.
Meanwhile, Barca players past and present lined up to defend Messi.
“He has every right in the world to be angry with Abidal,” said Rivaldo, while club captain Jordi Alba declared: “This club gets enough crap thrown at it from the outside so we shouldn’t be throwing crap at ourselves.”
Former French striker Christoph Dugarry told French radio that Barca was “a club of clowns”, while sports daily AS ran with the headline “Crisis FC”.
Club president Josep Maria Bartomeu met with Abidal ahead of a Copa del Rey game away at Athletic Bilbao and they agreed the Frenchman would carry on.
But a shock defeat to Athletic merely added to the club’s woes. Only 16 firstteam players travelled to Bilbao, while Samuel Umtiti arrived separately due to his involvement in a court case over allegations that he had trashed his rented villa, causing £150,000 of damage.
Further setbacks came in the form of injuries to Luis Suarez and Ousmane Dembele, which served only to highlight Abidal’s failure to sign a striker in the January transfer window.
Abidal also came under fire from Xavi over reports that the former midfielder had been offered the coach’s job ahead of Setien but had turned it down to stay in Qatar with Al Sadd.
Abidal denied that he had offered Xavi the job saying: “If he has an offer then let him show it.” But Xavi let it be known on Catalan radio that he was “very annoyed” at Abidal’s comments.
As always with Barcelona, nothing is straightforward.