Why Ronald Koeman isn’t and shouldn’t be the future of FC Barcelona.
Last August, the same month we lost 8–2 to Bayern or same time when Lionel Messi, the greatest player in our history, asked to be transferred that ex-president (and future inmate) Bartomeu appointed Ronald Koeman as the new Barcelona coach. Even though Koeman is a Barcelona legend and scored the winning goal in our first Champions League victory, most people had many doubts about his capacity to lead this team.
His appointment didn’t come as a surprise (to me at least) because when Valverde got sacked in January of 2020 he was already the first choice of Bartomeu, Koeman just didn’t come because he was commited to the Dutch National Team and would only like to come after Euro 2020, instead we got Quique Sétien.
Enough explaining, let’s take a look on why I don’t think he is the right man for the future analyzing everything he did right and everything he did wrong.
The Good:
He won Copa del Rey and we got to give him credit for that even though I think we shouldn’t judge a coach for Barcelona based on resultadism. Especially when the only “big team” we faced was Sevilla.
He trusted (some) of our youth players like Pedri, Moriba, Mingueza and Araújo. I didn’t say Ansu Fati because he was already established as an A team member but Koeman was key on the emergence of Pedri, our latest wonderkid and probably my bet for the best player of the next 10 years.
The Bad:
His tactical management was awful or even worse. We started the year playing in a 4–2–3–1 with Busquets and Frenkie in the double pivot. Busquets was labeled as finished because this system didn’t suit him, we even saw him in the wings during some games and even Frenkie was playing awful despite Koeman saying that he knew exactly where Frenkie needed to play. Pirlo, a young and unproven coach, outclassed us in Camp Nou and we lost 3–0 to a shocking Juventus team. In December, we were in 5th place and Koeman decided to change to a 4–3–3 which worked for one or two games until we lost again and Koeman changed again to a 3–5–2 which, again, worked for one or two games until we eventually lost again. His inability to figure out why we concede so many goals on defensive transition or why our positional play was bad made it clear that even though this systems would work better, he had no idea why it did.
His substitutions when we are losing are always the same, he subs off defenders and brings more attackers losing total control of the game and trusting that an individuality will solve the game.
The whole Riqui Puig story. Last summer when Puig started playing with Setien, everyone thought we was gonna be a starter for us in the next season because he was so good. When Koeman got appointed we clearly realized that he had something against him, first telling him to leave on a loan because he didn’t count on him and then calling him a snitch. Riqui decided to stay and fight for his place but Koeman would only sub him on when we were losing in an attempt to “burn him”. I remember perfectly that he got subbed on the 85th minute when we were already trailing 3–1 and was subbed against Juve when we were losing 3–0 and despite playing so few minutes, he would always display all his skills and why he could be one of the best midfielders of the future.
It’s currently May and he doesn’t even leave the bench anymore because Moriba is higher on the hierarchy.
We lost every time we played against a team as good as us except for the win against Juve in Turin.
Conclusion:
Take a look at Lampard’s example, he was a decent coach for a transitional season but didn’t work when he had better players and an obligation to fight for every trophy. I think Koeman is just like that even though I also think that with a good coach we would have won the LaLiga title with a 10 point lead because Atleti and Real have been a mess this year.
