BARCELONA – All or nothing. In the absence of football, play and results, Ronald Koeman can only guess a way out of survival in Barcelona: betting on youth. But to do so decisively and non-negotiably. He started it a year ago with Pedri, with Mingueza and Ilaix … And it seems to be on the way now with Nico, Gavi, Demir or Balde. But now it is at the critical moment, in the moment of truth. It is demanded that this bet is not half-hearted, to give minutes, but to make them protagonists at full risk. I fall who falls.
Much of Barcelona no longer believes in coach Koeman and it is suspected that he will only forgive him and return the lost support if he is able to repeat at the Camp Nou the revolution he once carried out in Valencia. Break with the past and win the future. And although in this future, perhaps, he will no longer lead the team, go down in history as the coach who ushered in a new era.
Johan Cruyff, in 1988, arrived at a Barcelona in full swing. It was the last umbrella of the then president Núñez and then to find a very, very, remodeled staff the first thing he did was put against the wall two sacred cows of the time such as Carrasco and Julio Alberto. When he could he billed them … Six years later, in 1994 and then tying four league titles (and being swept his team by AC Milan in the Champions League final) he got his hands on the locker room: he loaded of a featherweight to Zubizarreta, Julio Salinas, Goikoetxea, Laudrup and Joan Carles, several of them transcendental footballers to understand the Dream Team.
Cruyff understood the need to thoroughly regenerate a staff to which he shook again beastly after twelve months. Koeman, Stoichkov, Eusebius and Begiristain left (half a year after Romario’s escape). And Cruyff, who was not perfect but the smartest of them all, went from pointing out the sacred cows of the locker room to condemning the ostracism of the middle class with which he had regenerated the staff and who had not responded. to the requirement. And he bet, with both shamelessness and suicide, on the planter.
Out of nowhere came Iván de la Peña and Celades. And Toni Velamazán, Roger, Quique or Bru. And they added Busquets (Carlos), Carreras, Jordi, Òscar, Guardiola, Sergi or Amor to save the team’s face. And also club. The adventure ended badly because the cruelty of the scoreboard (he aspired to all the titles until the end and did not win any) and the divorce between the coach and the president led to the dismissal of Johan and the change of guidelines from the offices … But it was the first time in the modern era that Barcelona showed the world that its academy was a luxury. A necessary luxury.
EMERGENCY
Ronald Koeman is not Johan Cruyff. In times of globality and immediacy, his legendary figure is far from important, let alone the aura of who his master was. Football-wise, as a coach, he is also very far from that credo between suicidal and daring Johan who followed Pep Guardiola’s blind eyes. But he is Dutch. And he did show signs during his time as coach of his uninhibited commitment to youth … A circumstance that is being ventured with the utmost urgency today at Barça.
Koeman is blamed for Barça’s 1 football insuls, a pragmatism destined to win from the conservatism that rejects the fan, and is hardly sustained both by the difficulty of finding a substitute that does almost match the idea and by the cost of a dismissal that would force him to pay more than $ 18 million. And he has only one way out: revolutionize the team.
Van der Vaart, Mido, Maxwell, Sneijder, Stekelenburg or Chivu in Ajax; Manuel Fernandes at Benfica; David Silva, Mata or Éver Banega in Valencia; From Vrij, Martins Indi, Vilhena, Van Beek or Boetius to Feyenoord; Thomas Davies, Holgate or Calvert-Lewin can attest to the coach’s audacity to play youth. In Valencia we do not forget, always for evil, that he condemned three sacred cows of the importance of Cañizares, Albelda and Angulo … Less that he imposed a new youth and that thanks to his passage also settled Albiol or Alexis . And winning a Cup in the midst of the Valencian Civil War.
Koeman has no choice but to take the final step. Take a risk without a net with Balde and Gavi, with Nico and Demir, wait for Ansu Fati and Ousmane Dembélé, give the gallons to De Jong, Frenkie, of course, and group them with the Mingueza, Pedri, Ronald Araújo, Eric García, Memphis Depay, Marc-Andre ter Stegen and, who knows, recover Riqui Puig so that the Barça of the future begins to show itself in the present.
This could be the best title to win for a club that, on the verge of economic collapse, needs to regenerate in a hurry. With the banner of crushing in a last bet as risky as, it is suspected, necessary and non-negotiable.