Ronald koeman is set to become the new manager of Fc Barcelona in replacement for the sacked Quique Setien with the official announcement to be made anytime from now.
Following Barcelona’s humiliating 8-2 champions league defeat to Bayern Munich, the Spanish giants has resorted to make changes at the helm with a number of high-profile managers being linked with the job, including club legend Xavi Hernandez.
But according to the well-respected Italian journalist Fabrizio Romano and a number of credible reports, Koeman is the man the Barcelona board have chosen and it’s only a matter of time before he takes up the job. The former Everton and Southampton boss therefore looks set to resign from his current role in charge of the Netherlands to take the reigns at the Nou Camp.
This decision has left so many fans pondering, Is Ronald Koeman the right appointment for Barcelona? Is it a step in the right direction for the Club? Can he restore the glory and the fear factor the Club has lost?
On the face of it. All signs suggest the Dutchman might just be a good enough manager for the huge task at hand.
Firstly, Koeman is well versed in the Barca style of play, as a former player of the club where he won four league titles, his accomplishments were impeccable, his contributions with goals are also notable with his winner giving Barcelona their first ever European Cup title in 1992.
In 350 games wearing the famous Barcelona colours, Koeman had hit the back of the net 106 times becoming a club icon and establishing himself as one of the highest scoring defenders in world football.
He was also one of the few lucky enough to play and learn football as taught by Johan Cruyff. With the successes of Pep Guardiola in the club – another Cruyff student, things can only get better if Koeman is able to instil the stylistic principles as efficiently and rapidly as Cruyff and Pep did.
Koeman’s managerial career hasn’t been plain sailing to say the least, He started out as Netherlands’ young assistant coach in 1997-98 before going back to Camp Nou as Louis Van Gaal’s assistant from 1998-00. He was appointed manager of Vitesse for the 2000-01 season before landing his first big job with Ajax the following season where he spent 4 years, winning two consecutive league titles in his first two seasons after which he resigned in 2005.
Koeman spent a year each with SL Benfica and PSV where he managed to take both teams to the quarter-final stages of the Champions League, defeating quality sides like Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal. This was followed by a short stint at Valencia, during which he won the Copa del Rey.
He had another short spell with Az Alkmaar, spent 3 seasons with Feyenoord before joining his first premier league side – Southampton where he spent two fruitful years(2014-16) finishing 7th and 6th consecutively. This impressive feat attracted several clubs but he chose to join Everton where he achieved European qualification at the first time of asking before getting sacked the following season due to a string of bad perfomances.
In 2018 he took over a Dutch side that was quite out of shape and alarmingly low on morale, in a short period of time he had them firing once again, taking them to the finals of the Euros from a group that included France and Germany.
Going by his coaching career alone, some might argue he hasn’t been successful enough to take up the mantle at Barcelona but it’s not always about past successes.
Luis Enrique wasn’t that fantastic before joining Barcelona but he achieved so much even winning the treble in 2015. Pep Guardiola as well was the manager of the B team before being appointed in 2008. Koeman likewise has everything it might take to restore Barcelona if everything goes well.
Another good side for the appointment of Koeman is his man-management skills, his tactical awareness and that he’s a manager who breeds, integrates and puts faith in youth, and Barcelona has a good number of them. If he can replicate this in Camp Nou, then he can oversee the transition of talented young players like Ansu fati, Riqui Puig, Alena, Trincao etc into the first team.
So can Ronald Koeman be the one to turn around Barcelona’s fortunes? He most certainly can be but he’ll need the full support of the board and the full respect of his players so as to discharge his ideas.
