Madrid (AFP)

The great upheaval: after coach Quique Setién on Monday, FC Barcelona decided to dismiss its French sports director Eric Abidal, who became the great figure of the collapse of the Catalan sports project, four days after the 8-2 rout against Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

"Profound changes" had been announced, here they are: after Setién, it is the French "technical secretary" of Barça Eric Abidal (40) who paid for the catastrophic Blaugrana season, the first since 2007 without any title.

During the disintegration of the Catalan season, Eric Abidal, appointed in June 2018 in place of Roberto Fernandez, became the icon of the collapse of Barça's sporting project, as scandals followed failures on the field.

- "Take responsibility for your decisions" -

Under fire from criticism since the start of 2020, Abidal has been singled out for his management of the dismissal of former coach Ernesto Valverde, replaced by Quique Setién on January 13. With other leaders, Abidal went to visit Xavi Hernandez, coach of Al-Sadd in Qatar, to offer him the place of Valverde, still in office at that date, but the ex-Barça legend refuses.

A case that will continue the French until his dismissal: on February 6, the superstar Lionel Messi will break his usual silence, and post a message on Instagram to urge his sports director to "take responsibility for his decisions" and "to name names ", after the latter blamed the players for the dismissal of Valverde in an interview.

A bitter end of term for the former left-back or international central defender (67 caps) who blossomed from his debut in this new role of sports director, after retiring from a player in 2014.

"I feel very comfortable," said Abidal of his new post, a few months after taking office, his UEFA Masters in hand. "As a technician, I have to analyze the situation well internally, have a global vision of the market, measure internally what is feasible and make decisions."

"(Abidal) is very intelligent and he adapts to situations", then explained to AFP Clément Lenglet, welcoming a sports director who has retained a "player mentality" and who knows how to be convincing. "He is very good at his role and I think he did a very good recruiting."

- A blaugrana symbol that goes away -

The will of Abidal and his deputy Ramon Planes (51), former leader of Getafe, was to rejuvenate the Blaugrana workforce, with the arrival of Brazilians Arthur and Malcom, French Clément Lenglet and Jean-Clair Todibo, and of the great Dutch hope Frenkie de Jong, coveted by all of Europe.

But the last big transfers that bear his seal, in particular those of Ousmane Dembélé (for 138 M EUR in 2018) and Antoine Griezmann (for 120 M EUR in 2019), did not have the expected return . And the thirty-year-old locker room of Barça, which rubbed shoulders with Abidal during the triumphal era of coach Pep Guardiola, at the turn of the 2010s, has lost faith.

With the departure of Abidal, it is an icon of FC Barcelona who is leaving, a devoted side who has notably contributed to offering four Ligas and two Champions Leagues (2009 and 2011) to the club.

The second of these two European coronations made him a symbol: when he had just been operated on for the first time for his liver tumor, he had returned at the last minute, at the end of the season, to play the final at Wembley against Manchester United (3-1). Moved by his fight, Captain Carles Puyol had even let him lift the trophy first.

Still stuck in the trial surrounding his tumultuous liver transplant, Abidal is also known in France for having been one of the leaders of the France team's strike in Knysna during the 2010 World Cup.

But after a two-year term that started well, the lucky star Abidal left the club by the back door.

© 2020 AFP