Quique Setién scoffed and then started laughing. “No way,” he said. He had been talking for 12 minutes and he was only halfway through, still trying to put out the fire, when he was asked if he regretted becoming the Barcelona manager. “It’s true that a month ago I was at home and I had no problems, but [these are] blessed problems. I have the same enthusiasm as ever, the same will, because my life hasn’t been easy. You know things will happen here, you know the repercussions will be huge, but I’m blown by the north wind; I don’t go down easily.”
Nobody said it was easy, but nobody said it would be this hard. As for the problems, there are a lot. “It’s not normal to take over at a team that’s top,” Setién said when he arrived on 13 January but nor is it normal for so many things to happen so fast. And the scale of the latest problem – his captain and best player publicly calling out the sporting director – is yet to be fully gauged. The club’s president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, spoke to Eric Abidal and Lionel Messi on Wednesday, desperate to restore calm. After a long meeting, the decision was made to stick with Abidal.
Written by Sid Lowe in Madrid
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/feb/05/lionel-messi-barcelona-eric-abidal-patience-snapped under the title “The blame game: how Lionel Messi’s patience finally snapped at Barcelona”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
