Setien is not just a romantic

To football fans who aren’t all that familiar with LaLiga, Quique Setien’s appointment as FC Barcelona head coach might’ve come as a surprise, but to avid followers of the Spanish top division, it’s a match made by the football gods. The 61-year-old, a former top player himself, abides by the footballing laws laid out by the late visionary, Johan Cruyff, the man who very intricately carved out his philosophies during his own stint as manager of the Catalan giants from 1988 to 1996 – ideas and methods Pep Guardiola bases his managerial style on to this day. Cules (Barca fans) want to see their team win, but more importantly, it’s how they win. Setien, like Barcelona fans, holds these same core values. Soccer Laduma’s Kurt Buckerfield caught up with author and Spanish football expert Sid Lowe to discuss why the change happened now despite Barca sitting at the top of LaLiga!

A long time coming

Barcelona were accused of becoming “stale”, “predictable” and at times “boring” under Ernesto Valverde – words not usually associated with one of the greatest clubs in the world, especially not the same club Lionel Messi represents. Even still, Valverde left his post having won four trophies, including two consecutive LaLiga titles, but his failures in the UEFA Champions League perhaps proved unforgivable. It can be argued that the managerial change should’ve come at the end of last season following Barcelona’s gutless European semi-final second-leg performance at Liverpool and a defeat in the Copa del Rey final, but president Josep Maria Bartomeu stuck with the 57-year-old when it might’ve been easier to fire him. Valverde’s eventual exit from the Blaugrana was met with many emotional tributes from the club’s most experienced players, including Messi, who wrote on Instagram: “Thank you for everything, Mr. Surely you will be great wherever you go because, in addition to being a great professional, you are a great person. Good luck and a big hug.” While his football wasn’t always pretty, Valverde clearly had an impact on his former players and left still a well-respected coach, and like Messi alluded, a well-respected man, while many questioned the way he was pushed out by the club.

Xavi, Koeman… Setien?!

At first, former Barcelona captain and club legend Xavi Hernandez was sounded out by Bartomeu and sporting director Eric Abidal, who, along with CEO Oscar Grau, met with the 39-yearold in Qatar after their Spanish Super Cup semi-final loss to Atletico Madrid. Having come from La Masia and being successful as a player in the first team, Xavi ticks all the boxes, but it was an opportunity he turned down. His reasoning was that it was simply too soon, but there might’ve been more to it. It might’ve also been due to how he was approached, as Valverde was still in charge at the time of his meeting with Abidal and

Grau. The club’s behaviour was unethical and disrespectful toward Valverde, though the Spaniard must’ve had a hunch, and not only because it was on every front page of Spanish newspapers. The club then turned to another former player, Ronald Koeman. He, however, is in charge of the Dutch national team, and although he previously hinted at being interested in the position, has committed himself to being Netherlands boss at the 2020 UEFA European Championship later this year. Like Xavi – maybe the right man, definitely the wrong timing. Eventually, Setien was announced as Valverde’s successor and, at his unveiling, he warmed the hearts of everyone watching. “Yesterday, I was walking around my hometown with cows around me and now I’m here at Barcelona managing the best players in the world,” he said. But who is Setien? He was the manager in charge of the only team to beat Valverde’s Barca at the Camp Nou, in a 4-3 thriller with Real Betis in November 2018. The away side outsmarted Barcelona by playing out from the back, pressing high, playing daring, attractive, tiki-taka football. That performance prompted Sergio Busquets to give his match shirt to Setien, with a message that read: “For Quique, with affection and admiration for the way you see football.” Before his two years at Betis, Setien spent two years at Las Palmas, where he also left his Cruyff-inspired imprint.

Barcelona were forced into a corner

To chat about the big changes at Barcelona, we spoke to Sid Lowe, a football writer for The Guardian, an author, and a Spanish football expert based in Spain, who believes Setien is much more than a Cruyffian.

Kurt Buckerfield: Was the managerial change necessary at this stage in the season?

Sid Lowe: I think, in a way, the managerial change was one that probably didn’t feel necessary now but maybe had to be done earlier, and I think most people were surprised that Ernesto Valverde wasn’t sacked at the end of last season. After Anfield, he was already in a very difficult position and it was really the president who backed him at that point, and it was a presidential decision. There were many people on the board who didn’t necessarily expect him to continue and didn’t necessarily want him to continue, but he (Bartomeu) stayed with him. But of course, starting to look for alternatives, starting to get a grip on what would happen next, and an ideal situation for the president would’ve been that Valverde continued and had a successful season and gone in the summer – then, of course, his plan was Ronald Koeman to take over. But once this became public, it got precipitated and got hurried through, so that’s why it happened. I think that many of the flaws that Valverde is accused of are flaws that are much deeper, they are flaws that aren’t really about him. I think that perhaps there hasn’t always been an appreciation that what he was doing was keeping Barcelona steady-ish, more or less keeping them successful

when actually there were some really significant structural flaws, and that some of the things he was accused of, like, for example, not representing Barcelona’s style, not embracing the identity of the club were actually not, you know, entirely realistic. They failed to appreciate some of the difficulties he was confronted by.

KB: How do you feel about the way Valverde’s sacking was handled?

SL:

I think most people would not have fought particularly hard or would have not necessarily been particularly angry about the departure of Valverde. But I think a lot of people are quite rightly angry about the way it was done, about the timing of it, about the way it came out in public and they were effectively forced into a corner, and they were in a position where it got done very badly. Even Barcelona themselves said that at the presentation of Quique Setien. They said they would’ve liked things to be done differently and I think that shows you that there was a lack of planning, it shows you there was a lack of awareness, they thought they could get it sorted out quickly and when it got out, they were forced into a corner.

KB: Do you think that, with Setien, we are perhaps guilty of romanticising the return of Barcelona’s famous style of play, the famous tiki-taka?

SL:

With Setien, I think there is a risk of romanticising, I think that’s true. I think more than anything else, there is a risk of nostalgia being more powerful than reality. I don’t think that means that Setien is the wrong man necessarily, I think that Setien could very well be a good manager. But I think there’s been a lack of realism in terms of judging what the situation is now, perhaps a desperation to cling to the past, to an identity. I think it was exaggerated enormously at how much of a break from Barcelona’s past style Valverde was. I think Valverde had a problem, which is similar to the problem Luis Enrique had – he’s not Pep Guardiola. That said, Enrique was able to get closer to Guardiola than Valverde was. Valverde was the perfect manager to come in at a time of crisis, the departure of Neymar, but perhaps not quite the right manager to continue the construction of an identity and in particular with this group of players, and I think his hands were largely tied on that. With Setien, I think there is an element of taking Setien’s discourse, taking the kind of things he talks about, saying, ‘Right, this is Barcelona, this is what Barcelona has to be.’ I think in Setien’s defence, and as you probably know, Setien has done brilliant things, like at Las Palmas and Betis. I think in his defence this isn’t just talk, he genuinely does believe in it. I also think he’s more pragmatic than people think. I think there is a romanticising of him, but I think with his critics, there is an exaggerated destruction of him. This idea that he is purely a romantic is not true, he’s a competitor as well.

KB: Is it coincidence that this decision coincides with Messi’s strange form?

SL:

Messi’s form has been kind of strange, I agree with you. I think he individually has not played as well as he sometimes might, but I think he’s still been the best player by miles. I think there is a question mark about an overreliance on him. I think too many players hide behind him, I think too many players pass responsibility on to him, and I do think it’s legitimate to ask the question as to why that happens, and how culpable Messi may be in that process. I think that if you look at his body language at times, he must be thinking, ‘God, what have I done to deserve this?’ and yet that is an interesting question. What has he done to deserve this? Has he partly been part of this process that has taken Barcelona down this route? I think it is no coincidence that Messi wanted Neymar back, not just because he was a friend, but because he feels they play better together, the three of them, and there is a certain nostalgia from Messi but also bear in mind that what Neymar had was the cockiness, the cockiness to take people on, to take responsibility on, to be a leader and actually Messi wants that, or thinks he wants that. And, that’s the other question here. Is Messi partly caught in two minds? Of course, Messi wants the team to do the things that suit him, but I think actually he probably also knows that it suits him to not have responsibility all the time, it suits him to have a player like Neymar who draws players away from him, who scores goals himself when Messi can’t. Messi can’t do absolutely everything all the time, even though it occasionally feels like he does. And I feel that over the last 12 months, despite that sluggishness in form, that slight carelessness, I still think he has absolutely been miles and miles better than anyone else anywhere in the world and certainly better than anyone at Barcelona.

KB: Thanks, Sid! SL:

Cheers. ❐