If this is going to be a week of revenge, vindication and resurrection for Ernesto Valverde, then it certainly hasn't started well. He and Athletic Club, his Leones de San Mamés, will face Atlético de Madrid at home in the second leg of the Copa del Rey semi-final on Thursday (stream LIVE on ESPN+) and then host Barcelona on Sunday in LaLiga (stream LIVE on ESPN+). There's a lot to rely on in both results, but we'll come back to that in a minute.
There are many who, despite the 12 trophies that the Basque coach of Athletic Club has won throughout his career, erroneously persist in considering him an “almost” man. A “close guy, but not a smoker.” That is based on the fact that he, as a player, left Johan Cruyff's Barcelona immediately before they won four consecutive LaLiga titles and the first European Cup final in their history. Unfortunate timing.
It is also based on the fact that, as Espanyol's star winger, he was part of a group that led Bayer Leverkusen 3-0 in the first leg of the 1988 UEFA Cup final, but then lost the second leg 3-0 and then 3-2. in the penalty shootout in Germany to say goodbye to a trophy that already had his fingerprints on it. Football can be cruel, so of course Valverde eventually managed Espanyol when his 10-man team lost the 2007 UEFA Cup final at a rain-soaked Hampden Park in Glasgow again on penalties. , only this time against Sevilla. Nearly. Very close.
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Along the way, it was the 60-year-old, nicknamed “The Ant” in his playing days, partly for his diminutive stature and partly for his ever-industrious wing play, who nearly led Barcelona to the La Liga final. Champions in 2019. Do you remember Anfield? One of the most glorious nights in the competition's 69-year history came at Valverde's expense.
His Barça was eliminated from the tournament by a Liverpool team that played at the outer limits of conviction, passion, intensity, creativity, risk and reward. It was simply sensational…unless you were Valverde, his squad or a Barcelona fan. What has been forgotten, I think, is that Barcelona's 3-0 win in the first leg, which Jurgen Klopp's Reds overcame at Anfield, should have been 4-0 given that Messi gave a pass to Ousmane Dembélé in the final seconds, only for the erratic Frenchman to lose.
Given that Valverde's Barcelona had been 4-1 against Roma the previous season but lost 3-0 in the Italian capital to exit the tournament and, in their final season at the Camp Nou, lost the Copa del Rey final 2 -1. to Valencia: this “almost” label has been left, completely and unfairly, for those who do not pay due attention.
So back to revenge, vindication and resurrection. It was Atlético Madrid who finally cost Valverde his job as Barcelona coach. Let's go back to January 2020: while Valverde's blaugrana The team had been showing only moderate form, they were still top of La Liga (on goal difference) above Real Madrid when two late goals from Diego Simeone's Atleti defeated Barça 3-2 in the Super Cup semi-final. from Spain… and that was it for the coach. . Fired.
Now, it is important to state that Valverde will not be carried away by thoughts of revenge, but top-level sport is as much an industry of human drama as it is a commercial machine. If it weren't like that, no one would be interested. Therefore, the deliciously dangling extra bonus for Valverde is that he is Simeone's Atleti, with nine of the same players who were there when The Red and Whites Four years ago he sent Barcelona into free fall, whom Athletic needed to defeat on Wednesday in San Mamés to reach the final of the Copa del Rey.
Keep in mind that the two clubs are far from equal when it comes to grabbing the spoils of Spanish football. Athletic may be the second most successful club in terms of Copa del Rey victories, but they have not lifted this trophy in precisely 40 years. Perhaps worse and more painful is that they have lost six Cup finals in those four subsequent decades. Simply in terms of trophies, for example, when Valverde led Athletic to their sensational 5-1 victory over Barcelona in the 2015 Super Cup final, it was The Lions first trophy in 31 years. Atleti, by comparison, have lifted 10 trophies (most with Simeone) in the last 14 years.
San Mamés, even in its new, beautiful and strikingly atmospheric version, is still known as “The Cathedral” of Spanish football. Therefore, many extremely fervent Basque prayers will be offered when Atleti arrive to try to overturn their 1-0 deficit from the first leg: prayers like “please don't let this be one of those 'almost' nights, one of those 'close, but no cigarettes' nights.
They long to be in that final and win the trophy obviously, but above all because their historic Basque rival, Real Sociedad, could already be waiting for them given that The realThe first leg of the semi-final against Mallorca will be played the night before.
Honestly, imagine that: another all-Basque final at Seville's Olympic Stadium in April. The last was the 2020 final, postponed a year due to the pandemic but still had to be played without fans in April 2021. Athletic lost – of course they did – but without us worrying too much about which of the two might savor a Basque victory this time, the sheer spectacle of Andalusia's greatest city (Seville) being overwhelmed by tens of thousands of supporters from San Sebastian and Bilbao is sumptuously tempting, should each of them manage to get there. The world will stop to pay attention, believe me.
I mentioned that the week hasn't started well for Valverde (or Athletic) in the sense that they stunk by losing to Real Betis. Worse still, their important left-back, Yuri Berchiche, is injured, and although Nico Williams and Dani Vivian will be available for the Cup semi-final, both are suspended for the second half of Valverde's chance at revenge-vindication-resurrection this week. . That will be when they host current Spanish champions Barcelona in LaLiga on Sunday.
Of course, it's not just the fact that Josep Maria Bartomeu, the former Barcelona president who oversaw the club racking up more than €1.2 billion in global debt and left it hamstrung by LaLiga's financial fair play rules, fired Valverde. It's not just about “revenge.”
Athletic represents Basque pride: it only uses footballers born or raised in its territory in northern Spain. No other club in the world can ever claim to apply such strict and “self-regulating” selection criteria. Still The Lions They are one of only three clubs, along with Madrid and Barcelona, who have never been relegated.
The flip side is that getting proper elbow room on the top table is difficult. Athletic have played in the Champions League only twice (the last time under Valverde in 2015) and it has been six years since they played European football. The Lions want to roar again.
Had they beaten Betis, Athletic would have been among the top four, but they fell flat on their faces. The last few meetings with Barcelona have been gigantic, fantastic entertainment: the last five at San Mamés included a 3-2 win for each team and, most recently, Athletic won 4-2 after extra time.
Valverde doesn't like nostalgia very much, not “what could have been.” On the rare occasions that he has spoken about his time at Barcelona, when he smelled a whiff of decadence or the “end of an era”, he has done so in a euphemistic way.
His choice of comparison was when Italian basketball coach Sergio Scariolo joined the Toronto Raptors as an assistant coach in 2018 before helping them win their first NBA title. So when Valverde described his own experience in Barcelona to his friend Lu Martin on Relevo, he used the cross-sports comparison to say: “Scariolo had won a lot of trophies, everyone said he was very good, but he was used to those previous projects being.” His.” When he got to the NBA and Toronto, he realized that this was the players' project… that he had to adapt to them, not the other way around.”
It is a clear way of explaining that, although Valverde's era at Barcelona had sublime, aging footballers (Andrés Iniesta, Sergio Busquets, Jordi Alba, Lionel Messi, Luis Suárez, Gerard Piqué and others), he did not feel completely at ease. post. . It was a negotiated process, not a traditional hierarchical one, and in due course the much more relaxed training regime favored by the big beasts of the Barça team cost them in competitive terms. Oh, and it was Valverde, not the players, who paid the price.
The irony is that with Xavi firm in his desire to leave in June, Valverde would be the absolutely ideal replacement. However, that ship sailed a long time ago; Barcelona has burned bridges with Valverde once and for all. And so, the current Spanish champions go to Bilbao in a Champions League place, eight points ahead of Valverde's team, and it would be great business for the Basque to remind the Catalans of the technical talent they lost and, in the process, drive The Lions towards European football next season.
The week hasn't started well for Valverde, but it remains intriguing and promising. Revenge, vindication, resurrection, a place in the cup final and access to the Champions League are not usually offers like they are this week, over the course of three days: they “almost” won't do it here.
