It is a matter of time, casting and money, but Koeman is on the ropes and his continuity as a Barça coach has an expiration date. All that remains is to set the day. The gap between the club president and the coach is already insurmountable after the draw at the Camp Nou against Granada.
However, for now the Dutchman will continue to lead the team and will be the one who will lead Barça in the next game on Thursday in Cádiz. Surely, he will also be the coach against Levante and in the Champions League game against Benfica and even against Atlético. That he continues to coach Barcelona after the October break is already too much risk of events and an attack of optimism.
Koeman continues because at the moment Barcelona cannot find anyone to take over the team's reins. The financial problem to fire him also persists, but to a lesser extent than in July, when the team's situation was so dramatic that Laporta had to back down after personally announcing to the Dutchman that he was not his favorite coach and asking him for fifteen days. to find an alternative.
Laporta wants a coach who starts a solid project, even if he reaches midseason and who he can identify as his. You don't want a bridge coach to save your furniture, finish the season, and then start looking for one for the summer.
Possible substitutes
And technicians to start projects when all the competitions have been running for two months is complicated. Laporta likes Robert Martínez, the Belgian coach, but the Catalan in no way seems willing to leave Belgium hanging before playing the final phase of the Nations Cup to be played in early October, precisely in the LaLiga break, together with Spain, Italy and France in Italy. There, the timings match perfectly. Koeman would continue until the national team break and then Balaguer's could come.
The option of incorporating someone from the house was deactivated by Laporta himself in a decision that surprised everyone. The subsidiary's coach, Francisco Javier García Pimienta, had sounded very seriously at least twice as a replacement for the first team, but as soon as he became president, Laporta fired him to change him for Sergi Barjuan. If he was in the García Pimienta club, he would surely already be at the Camp Nou.
Barcelona today is abuzz with names of possible substitutes where it sounds from the aforementioned Martínez (today's favorite) to Pirlo through Löw or financially unattainable dreams like Antonio Conte.
The stubborn reality, on the other hand, indicates that for the moment Koeman is still, but mortally wounded, and that the expiration date needs to be stamped with the day and the month.