August 2020 was the end of the cycle of Eric Abidal as technical secretary of the FC Barcelona. Now, seven months later, the former player reviews his time with the Catalan team.
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In an interview for The Telegraph, The Frenchman uncovered several subjects and sent a dart to Messi. He also talked about signing Griezmann and the DT he proposed to the Barça team.
He asked for Valverde’s departure
“In December 2018, after a thorough analysis of the coach, staff and team, I recommended that we switch to Ernesto Valverde, I told the president ‘I think this is the decision that needs to be made now’. And he told me ‘no, it’s not easy’. He made the decision to renew the coach’s contract two months later, contrary to what I had suggested. Of course, I accepted the decision and continued to give the coach all my support, but it was a little weird for me. When we did without Valverde, in the basket were Pochettino, Setién, Allegri and Xavi Hernández, but my first choice was Pochettino“.
He proposed signing the now PST DT
“If I talked to him? Yes and not just me. I told the board ‘I have to bring the best coach we can in the market. I’m not here for politics because he was at Espanyol before.’ better and he is one of the best in our game.Pochettino reached the Champions League final with Tottenham, this must be respected, he has a good philosophy of play, training, the players love him and I think now he would be a better coach for this situation, but with a real project “.
Dart to Messi
“In my opinion, the team needed to train harder. In my time with Guardiola, it was ‘do you want the best? Ok, you have to train like the best. You will earn it all, only if you do the work during the week. I just said that, never did the players want to get rid of the coach. Messi spoke to me personally. We had a strong conversation, but I can accept it. No problem because you need to be transparent. I was very comfortable because I was the only player who spoke to me like that, the only one. Regarding this. I also understand that Messi is the captain and I wanted to defend the squad, but I never said that Messi would have told me to fire the coach. Mai “.
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How was the relationship with the “Flea”?
“I don’t have to fix anything with Messi, Our relationship has not changed from my point of view. From his point of view, I don’t know, but for me the situation was over. We exchanged a lot of messages and he knows what I think. I didn’t want to turn a small situation into a global one and put the whole club in trouble. “
Griezmann prevented the return of Neymar
“Ten days before the end of the signing period, I went to Paris to talk to Leonardo (PSG sporting director). If we hadn’t signed Griezmann before, I think 100% we could have re-signed Neymar. We needed a striker and when Neymar was in Barcelona it was amazing. It’s not about which player is better, it was what I thought was the position we needed at the time. The team needed a real extreme. The president decided to sign Griezmann. One of the arguments against Neymar was that he had a court case against the club, so it was not easy. They said he would have to stop the lawsuit if he wanted to return. This was not my problem because I was not at the club when this dispute happened. In my opinion, I could sign the player, but it didn’t happen. “