La Liga
HEAVY BURDEN ON QUIQUE SETIEN TO RESTORE BARCELONA’S GLORY
Ernesto Valverde is the first coach Barcelona have dispensed with in the middle of a campaign since Louis van Gaal was sacked in January 2003 with the team sitting 12th in the standings
Ernesto Valverde on Monday became the first coach of Barcelona to be sacked in the middle of a campaign since Louis van Gaal was sacked in January 2003 while the team was sitting 12th on the La Liga log.
As earlier anticipated, Valverde was sacked, but Xavi Hernandez who was initially eyed as replacement turned down the offer and thus, Quique Setien was named Barcelona coach late on Monday.
He is tasked with the job of restoring the club’s iconic passing style, but the appointment represents a huge gamble for the Catalans given the 61-year-old’s lack of success at the highest level.
While his predecessor Ernesto Valverde won two La Liga titles in two years and has the team top once again at the halfway point this season, Setien, apart from some success in Spain’s third tier in 2011, has no coaching honours to his name.
His best La Liga finish was as Real Betis coach in 2018, taking them to sixth and qualifying for the Europa League, but he parted ways with them last season as the team ended up 10th.
The former Racing Santander and Atletico Madrid midfielder’s tactical nous was lost at the helm of Betis, with fans turning against him despite the attacking possession football he played, seeking more passion and less precision.
However, in a stylistic sense at least, Setien should fit in perfectly at Barcelona having been inspired by Johan Cruyff’s side while playing against them in the late 1980s.
“I remember when Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona came along,” Setien told The Coach’s Voice.
“From then on, I started to make sense of what I had felt throughout life, through my career.
“I started to really watch football. To analyse it. To understand what I felt, and what I wanted to put into practice when I became a coach.” After the Pep Guardiola and Tito Vilanova era, Barcelona began to lose some of their swagger while still picking up trophies at an impressive rate.
Under Luis Enrique and then Valverde the focus shifted from teamwork to the individual, with elite players such as Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez becoming increasingly important.
Setien, a chess enthusiast who had often been linked with the Barcelona job in the past, must rearrange the pieces to give the Catalans their identity back.
As Valverde discovered, domestic silverware is not enough at Barcelona. Fans demand Champions League success as well as quality performances.
Setien delivered an example of what his sides are capable of last season when Betis beat Barcelona 4-3 at Camp Nou – the first team in two years to triumph there and also the last side to do so.
If that was the coach’s job interview, he passed.
-Reuters
It was mission accomplished, said Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti after his side fought back from two-goals behind to snatch a rip-roaring 4-4 draw on Tuesday for a 5-4 aggregate win that put them through to the Copa del Rey final.
Ancelotti brushed off questions about a sub-par performance by his side and praised his players’ effort in what he considered a highly entertaining encounter.
“We have achieved our goal today which was to reach the final and there is not much time to think about it,” Ancelotti told a press conference.
“It was an entertaining game with some mistakes and a lot of good things. It was fun and we are in the final.
“I never saw ourselves out of it because anything can happen at the Bernabeu. When we have to come from behind, we never give up. We never give up, especially at home, with the fans by our side.”
Ancelotti said David Alaba was not to blame after he deflected two balls into his own goal, calling it “bad luck” by the Austrian defender, but urged his defence to play with better focus moving forward.
“It’s not good to concede four goals in a game,” Ancelotti said.
“Right now we are a team that has a lot of effectiveness up-front, but little balance.
“However, we can’t ignore what we did in attack, scoring four goals against Real is not that easy. I think we are doing quite well.”
Real Madrid, who have won the Spanish Cup only once in over a decade, will play either Barcelona or Atletico Madrid in a mouth-watering final in Seville next month.
Atletico fought back to hold Barca to a thrilling 4-4 draw ahead of Wednesday’s second-leg in Madrid.
-Reuters
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Real Madrid’s legendary coach Carlo Ancelotti will go on trial next week for allegedly failing to declare income to Spain’s tax office, the Madrid court which will hear the case has said.
Prosecutors are seeking a jail term of four years and nine months for the 65-year-old Italian, accusing him of having cost Spain’s treasury more than one million euros ($1.1 million) in undeclared earnings from image rights in 2014 and 2015.
The trial will begin on Wednesday and it is expected to last two days, a spokesman for the court said.
Ancelotti, who as a coach has won a record five Champions League trophies including three with Real, must be present for the hearings, he added.
Prosecutors accuse him of only declaring in his tax returns the personal remuneration received from Real Madrid during those two years even though he himself declared himself to be a tax resident in Spain and indicated his home was in Madrid.
They accuse Ancelotti of allegedly setting up a “confusing” and “complex” system of shell companies to hide his extra earnings from his image rights as well as from other sources such as real estate.
A Spanish court in 2023 ordered Ancelotti to stand trial over the affair, but did not set a date.
Ancelotti dismissed the affair last year as “an old story that I hope will be resolved soon” when he was asked about the case.
He took over at Real Madrid in 2013, leaving in May 2015, before being appointed at Bayern Munich the following year.
The former Italy international midfielder, who as a player won the European Cup twice with AC Milan, later managed Napoli and Everton before returning to Real Madrid in 2021.
Aside from his success in the Champions League he has won domestic league titles with Madrid and Milan, in England with Chelsea, in Germany with Bayern Munich and in France with Paris Saint-Germain.
-AFP
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Spain’s former soccer chief Luis Rubiales told Reuters on Thursday he would appeal a court ruling which found him guilty of sexual assault for kissing player Jenni Hermoso without her consent.-
-Reuters
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