Ronald Koeman (58 years old) did not go yesterday to the Ciutat Esportiva de Sant Joan Despí to say goodbye to anyone. He did not need it since on Wednesday night he already said goodbye to his players and the locker room deputies upon arriving from Madrid, after learning from President Laporta that he was fired.
Sources close to the technician report that the president told Koeman on the plane back to Barcelona that he was not going to continue, that the story was over. The coach stoically accepted the decision, aware that the results had played against him and that, as he had been repeating in his last press conferences, that unappealable law of football – that of victories, draws and defeats- it was the one who had sentenced him. Falling consecutively against Madrid at the Camp Nou and against the modest Rayo in Vallecas was his grave. In fact, he was already expecting it without anyone having told him in the preview that he was hanging by a thread.
The coach accepted the decision with integrity and after collecting some of his belongings from the Ciutat Esportiva and saying goodbye to the players and staff, he headed home with a mixed feeling of sadness and relief.
Farewell to the Sports City
He said goodbye with a point of emotion to the veterans in whom he trusted so much and to the young people to whom he gave the alternative. He lacked Ansu, who had not traveled to Madrid and to whom he has great appreciation despite not having been able to enjoy it just because of his knee injury.
Koeman He left sad because the dream of his life was to train at Barça and what he did not expect is that his career at Barcelona was a continuous obstacle course.
The relief was because he had lived the last weeks, and especially the last days, as an agony, a countdown to the inevitable: his removal. The hardest episode was last Sunday when he left the Camp Nou after the Classic, when he felt intimidated by a group of madmen who surrounded his car, some with the intention of improperly recording his image and others wanting to intimidate him. . All that, with his wife in the vehicle.
So when Laporta She informed him that it was all over. She felt that feeling of taking a weight off her shoulders. Yesterday the club began negotiating with its agent for the settlement, estimated at around twelve million, which Barça will try to reduce or, at least, pay in a comfortable way.
Nico’s change
Club sources tell the president Laporta He was excited by the general passivity of the team in the first half against Rayo and, especially, the change of Nico Gonzalez in the 84th minute when he was being the best and the team lost 1-0. And although first from the club the message was transmitted that nothing was going to happen with Koeman Neither on Wednesday nor yesterday Thursday, with the intention of putting up with him until the Alavés game, events finally rushed forward and the president decided in mid-flight that the best thing to do was to fire him now. Koeman, a technician you never believed in.
After arriving from Madrid, Ronald He went home and Laporta’s staff went to the president’s staff to plan the roadmap for the next day, which included signing Xavi and put Sergi as a bridge. Hours before, they had eaten in a private restaurant in Madrid Julián de Tolosa House, perhaps guessing since the era Koeman it was running out.