MADRID, July 4 (Xinhua) — Ernesto Valverde commenced his third reign in charge of Athletic Club Bilbaoa as the club returned to pre-season training on Monday.
Valverde returns with an aim of guiding the Spanish club back to European football for the first time since he left in 2017.
Valverde returns after leading FC Barcelona to two league titles in 2018 and 2019 and the 2018 Copa del Rey, but was sacked after Barca (who were top of LaLiga at the time) lost to Atletico Madrid in the semi-final of the Spanish Supercup in January 2020, and has not worked since.
The 58-year-old former player agreed to return to Athletic if either Jon Uriarte or Ricardo Barkala won the recent vote for the club presidency on March 24th and has signed a one-year contract after Uriarte’s decisive win at the poll of club members.
He replaces Marcelino Garcia Toral, who just missed out on leading Athletic to a place in Europe last season with an eighth-place finish and who then ended his 18-month tenure as his contract expired at the end of June.
Valverde will be reunited with several players from his previous four-year spell in which he led the club to a place in Europe every season. Iker Muniain, Oscar de Marcos, Mikel Balenziaga, Inaki Williams, Raul Garcia and Mikel Vesga are all survivors from his last first team squad.
Athletic on Sunday confirmed that striker Gorka Guruzeta had returned to the club on a two-year contract after impressing in the Liga SmartBank (second division) by scoring 13 goals for relegated Amorebieta, while three B-team players, Luis Bilbao, Malcolm and Benat Gerenobarrena will take part in pre-season training with the first team and defender Imanol Garcia de Albeniz will also get his chance after an impressive loan spell with second division Mirandes.
Inigo Vicente, who also spent last season at Mirandes, and Inigo Cordoba, who was loaned to the Dutch side, Go Ahead Eagles, have both been told they can look for a new club as they don’t enter into Valverde’s plans for the coming season as he looks to trim the squad down to 24 or 25 players.
The Basque side kick off the 2022-23 campaign with home games against Mallorca and Valencia with Europe their main aim for the season.
A new era is beginning at Athletic Club, with Jon Uriarte winning the club’s presidential election on Friday, although it will also start with a familiar face at the core of the next project.
Uriarte, who succeeds Aitor Elizegi, is bringing back manager Ernesto Valverde for his third spell in charge of Los Leones.
Valverde coached Athletic Club between 2003 and 2005 and between 2013 and 2017, helping them win the Spanish Super Cup in 2015, as well as qualifying for the Champions League.
The experienced coach’s last post was at FC Barcelona, where he won LaLiga Santander twice in his first two seasons, as well as the Copa del Rey in 2018 and the Spanish Super Cup in 2018.
Another presidential candidate, Iñaki Arechabaleta, had pledged to bring Marcelo Bielsa back as coach if he won the election, but the fans voted for Uriarte and the trusted Valverde.
Athletic Club, a member-run club and one of three sides never to have been relegated from LaLiga Santander, famously have a policy of only using players who are from the Basque Country, have roots there or who have been formed in the region.
That makes them unique in world football and a team with their own particular idiosyncrasies to work with as president or as coach.
Uriarte’s ‘Izan Athletic’ campaign won Friday’s elections with 46.71% of the vote, with 10,979 club members selecting him, in comparison to Arechabaleta’s 33.72% or third-place Ricardo Barkala’s 18.13%.
As well as Uriarte’s plan to bring back Valverde, he was the candidate who presented himself as the face of steady but calm change. At 44 years old, he was the youngest of the candidates.
“I need to sleep a little, and then look and learn to understand the club’s position,” said Uriarte after his victory. “This won’t be a revolution like a bull in a china shop, but about coming in, knowing the club and mounting a four-year action plan.”
Athletic Club have not finished higher than eighth place since Valverde was last at the club, whereas during his second spell the lowest they finished was seventh.
The 58-year-old will take over after last season’s coach Marcelino García Toral decided to step aside in May ahead of the club elections.
Uriarte, an entrepreneur, has experience working in finance in London, as well as in the hotel sector and in real estate, and he was the co-founder of ticket resale platform Ticketbis, which was sold to eBay for a reported $165 million in 2016.
His campaign saw heavy use of social media, showing his nous in that area, as he connected with the club’s younger members.
He will be supported by vice-presidents Nerea Ortiz and Jon Ruigómez, and his first task will be to hire a director of football and make official Valverde’s return.
The new president was tight-lipped on potential transfer targets for the club ahead of the vote on Friday at the club’s San Mamés stadium.
“For us it would be easy to go to the market and bring someone in to make a statement, and maybe like that you can win more votes,” said Uriarte last week. “But we would be throwing money in the bin, overpaying. We want to do things well, for the good of the club.”
The transfer mill has thrown up links to Jon Moncayola, Ander Herrera, Álvaro Odriozola and Hugo Guillamón, all of whom have Basque heritage or history and would be eligible to play for the club.
However, there are plenty of strong assets at the club already, including forward Iñaki Williams, hitting his prime years, while playmaker and Athletic Club legend Iker Muniain was in sublime form last season.
The club will continue to lean on their legendary Lezama academy, after giving 55.8% of minutes last season to homegrown youth products, more than any other club across Europe’s top five leagues.
One of those players was goalkeeper Unai Simón, who has established himself as Spain’s clear No.1 ahead of the 2022 World Cup.
Other key issues include renewing the contract of key centre-back Iñigo Martínez, whose deal expires in June 2023, and right-back Ander Capa, who is otherwise a free agent at the end of this month.
There is plenty of work to do for Uriarte in the coming days and a lot of excitement building ahead of pre-season and the club’s 2022/23 LaLiga Santander campaign.
Spanish coach Ernesto Valverde has been appointed new Athletic Club Bilbao manager after Jon Uriarte was elected as the new club president of the La Liga club on Friday.
The 47-year-old businessman beat two other candidates (Jon Barkala and Inaki Arechabaleta) after winning just over 46 percent of the votes cast by Athletic’s club members, while Arechabaleta obtained 33.9 percent and Barkala at 18.11 percent.
Valverde, who has not worked since being harshly sacked by FC Barcelona in January 2020, on Wednesday had committed himself to return for a third spell at Athletic if either Uriarte or Barkala won the election.
Argentinean Marcelo Bielsa would have been the coach had Arechabaleta been elected. Bielsa had coached Athletic between 2011 and 2013 and gave an in-depth presentation of his vision of the club on Monday.
A former Athletic player, Valverde first led the club between 2003 and 2005, qualifying for the UEFA Cup on one occasion, while his second spell lasted for four years between 2013 and 2017, leading them to the Champions League in his first year back in charge and a place in the Europa League in the following three years.
MADRID, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) — Very rarely does one single result bring the curtain down on an era, but that is what FC Barcelona’s 8-2 thrashing in the quarter-final of the Champions League did on Friday night.
Barca’s worst ever European defeat was a “historically ridiculous” according to the pro-Barca ‘El Mundo Deportivo’ newspaper and had veteran defender Gerard Pique tell TV cameras directly after the final whistle that it was “embarrassing.”
“We have touched bottom and it’s unacceptable,” added Pique after Barca had been outplayed, outrun and outfought in every area of the park by a Bayern side that looked, fitter, faster and hungrier than the Catalans.
The immediate consequence of the defeat will be to bring the curtain down on the brief spell at the Camp Nou of coach Quique Setien, who was brought in to replace Ernesto Valverde with Barca top of the league in January, only to see his side finish five points behind Real Madrid and now to crash disastrously out of Europe.
“We are going to take decisions,” said Barca president, Josep Maria Bartomeu shortly after the final whistle, probably aware that his own future is now up in the air as well with elections for the presidency on the horizon.
Setien came in thanks to his commitment to a passing game that Valverde had been accused of abandoning but showed himself to be totally inflexible despite obvious limitations in the squad and perhaps Valverde’s move towards more direct football at times has been vindicated as key players showed they no longer have the physicality needed to keep up the high pressure that made Barca so feared in the past.
Time and again, the Germans showed how effective high pressure and swift passing can be, but Barca lacked the legs to play their way out of trouble, while Leo Messi and Luis Suarez both aged 33 were simply unable to apply the pressure at the other end.
Xavi Hernandez (who turned the job down before Setien was appointed in January) and Mauricio Pochettino have both been mooted as possible replacements, but the fact is whoever takes over faces a difficult task, for the problems at the Camp Nou are not going to be solved in a day – or even in a season. As well as Messi and Suarez, there are plenty of other key players at the club, who are the wrong side of 30.
Pique, who is still Barca’s best central defender by a long way, is also 33, while Sergio Busquets, who has been the first choice since 2008, is 32 and showing signs of decline. Arturo Vidal is 33, while Ivan Rakitic is 32 and left-back Jordi Alba is 31.
Basically the entire backbone of the Barca side is over 30 and has been allowed to grow old with the club’s sporting direction doing very little to stop the squad aging together.
While it’s true that Antoine Griezmann and Frenkie de Jong were added last summer, so far only De Jong has shown that he is going to adapt to be a Barca player, while the arrivals from two years earlier. Ousmane Dembele and Coutinho, have so far been expensive failures – with Coutinho ironically loaned to Bayern and painfully netting the last two goals on Friday.
A further problem is what Suarez, Busquets, Pique and company leave the Camp Nou they will all be expensive to replace, yet very few of them are going to be able to command a transfer fee and Barca’s finances are not in the healthiest of situations at the moment.
There is no way the club will be able to find substitutes for so many key players in one season, it will need two years and even then the club will have to get everything right – which must be a worry given how many signings they have got wrong in recent years.
Youngsters Riqui Puig and Ansu Fati offer some hope for the future, but it is unfair to place so much responsibility on a midfielder who has just turned 21 and an 18-year-old forward.
And last but not least: Leo Messi has been the Barca talisman for 15 years now and even now he is the player who leads from the front – how do you replace the best player in the world?
Bartomeu and his directors have rested too long on their laurels and on Messi’s genius, but now they and the Barca faithful could be due for some lean times, no matter who is in the dugout.
Ernesto Valverde has selected his 18-man squad ahead of Barcelona’s second leg quarter-final clash with Manchester United on Tuesday night, with no surprise omissions or inclusions in the squad list.
There were lots of rotations for the Huesca draw at El Alcoraz on Saturday, though the likes of Lionel Messi, Gerard Pique, Luis Suarez, Ivan Rakitic and Sergio Busquets will all be back in action at the Camp Nou.
Barcelona’s squad to face United: Marc-Andre ter Stegen, Jasper Cillessen; Nelson Semedo, Sergi Roberto, Gerard Pique, Clement Lenglet, Samuel Umtiti, Jordi Alba; Sergio Busquets, Ivan Rakitic, Philippe Coutinho, Arthur, Arturo Vidal, Carles Alena; Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, Ousmane Dembele and Malcom.
Meanwhile, Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has called on his attacking players to rediscover their best form for the Champions League quarter-final second leg at Barcelona.
The Reds trail 1-0 from the first game last week but Alexis Sanchez is part of the squad again, after recovering from a knee injury.
The former Barcelona forward will be itching for an opportunity to put one over his former club and really kickstart his campaign after a stop-start few months.
“Alex has been here and played here so it’s a big night for him,” said Ole at his press conference at the Nou Camp, scene of his greatest moment as a player. “When he’s on the pitch, I’m sure he wants to prove a point.
“He wants to prove a point for us as well, because he’s been injured, he’s not had a fantastic season so far and let’s hope he can end it great for us because we are at the business end.
“Let’s hope Alexis, when he’s on the pitch, can be happy with his performance.”
Nemanja Matic provided a boost by being available for the trip, after his recent spell out, and Scott McTominay is also a strong candidate for a midfield spot after the in-form Scotland international was able to conserve his energy when left on the bench for the 2-1 victory over West Ham United
When asked about his attacking choices, Ole said: “It’s very important. We need to score goals. If Romelu [Lukaku], Marcus [Rashford], Jesse [Lingard], Anthony [Martial] or Alexis play, we need a big performance.
“We have to defend but we have to have that little bit of extra to score goals against teams like this. I expect whoever is going to start tomorrow, when they’re on the pitch, to know I want to see some good form. Of course, we have to.”
Luke Shaw is suspended but Ashley Young returns after his domestic ban at the weekend, providing another option to play at left-back.
Eric Bailly and Ander Herrera remain sidelined while young striker Mason Greenwood, who came on as a substitute on Saturday, did not travel with the squad.
Philippe Coutinho’s teammates and manager have supported him despite reports indicating that he is frustrated at Barcelona after a slow start at La Liga.
The former Liverpool playmaker has struggled for consistency in his second year at Barcelona and has already been linked with a return to the Premier League.
Manchester United and Chelsea are reportedly monitoring Coutinho’s situation with a view to launching a summer transfer move for the Brazilian.
However, reports in Spain indicate that despite Coutinho’s current mood, the Brazilian continues to have the backing of his team-mates.
Coutinho failed to impose himself on the El Clasico clash with Real Madrid on Wednesday night despite grabbing a brace against Sevilla in the Copa Del Rey
The return of Ousmane Dembele from injury could even make things difficult for the 26-year-old manager Ernesto Valverde to reshuffle his starting eleven.
Chelsea and United would need to table a monster bid to lure Coutinho back to England after Barcelona paid £142million to bring the Brazil international to the Nou Camp.
The player has given no indication he would be open to an exit from Spain and despite concerns about his current performances, Coutinho has scored eight goals and provided five assists in 32 appearances.
Barcelona manager Ernesto Valverde has included Lionel Messi in his squad for Wednesday night’s game against Real Madrid.
Messi had suffered a knock against Valencia at the weekend and was declared a doubt for the Copa del Rey semi-final, however it is still unclear if he will start or begin the match on the bench.
According to Marca, It is likely that Barcelona’s No. 10 will start as they recover their most dangerous player, especially when it comes to playing Madrid as he has scored 26 goals in 38 games against Los Blancos.
Although Barcelona have already shown this season that they can win El Clasico without their talisman after a 5-1 win at the Camp Nou, the current Madrid side are in a better form than they were at that point.
There is no denying that Barcelona’s chances of advancing to the final are far stronger with Messi in the line-up, though, and the 31-year-old has five goals in his last five games against Madrid.
If he does feature, as expected, Messi will grow ever closer to beating Xavi Hernandez’s record of 42 Clasico appearances as this will be the Argentine’s 39th, one ahead of Andres Iniesta.
However, Barcelona will miss the services of Oussmane Dembele after the French failed to recover in time for the match.
Although he trained with the squad on Tuesday, Valverde has decided that he is not yet ready to return.