Dismissed Quique Setien, Barcelona’s President Appoints Ronald Koeman to be the New Coach

DBasia.news – Barcelona President Josep Maria Bartomeu did not hide who the new Blaugrana coach who will replace Quique Setien. As has been widely circulated in Europe by trusted sources the coach is to be Ronald Koeman.

“If nothing changes then there will be an announcement of Koeman as our next coach and he will lead the team and these players with a different project, led by a coach known to Barcelona fans,” Bartomeu said as quoted by Sport-English.

Ronald Koeman will replace Setien who was dismissed following a crushing 2-8 Champions League defeat to Bayern Munich. Setien has only coached Barcelona for seven months since replacing Ernesto Valverde in January.

“I thank him (Setien) coming in the middle of the season, the brave decision to take over in January. The pandemic, the lockdown, gave us a lot of damage and it hurt him. (I’m not) disappointed, no, he did a lot of good things,” added Bartomeu.

Koeman (57 years) came to coach Barcelona after two years coaching the Dutch national team. Previously he also coached Ajax Amsterdam, Benfica, PSV Eindhoven, Southampton and Everton.

His experience playing as a defender with Barcelona legend status in mid 1989-1995 also convinced management to recruit him. Koeman knows very well the culture of playing Barcelona because of this experience.

“We bet on him because we know him very well, we know how he thinks and his team plays, but also because of his experience and he is in Johan (Cruyff) ‘s dream team. He knows Barca and how to understand football,” added Bartomeu.

Finally, Bartomeu explained the reason Barca recruited Koeman at this time before the new season and not last January.

“Koeman told us that he has responsibilities with the Netherlands and he cannot leave before the European Cup,” said Bartomeu.

“Now he’s telling us in the era of the pandemic he doesn’t know if the European Cup will take place and he can break his deal with the national team. His dream was to coach Barca and now it’s happening.”