• Dismissal: Barcelona separates Víctor Valdés from the youth

Barcelona plans to fire Víctor Valdés on Monday as coach of Juvenil A, a position he was cut off on Friday after a clash with his former teammate and now immediate superior, Patrick Kluivert , now director of formative football. «They did not reach the hands, but it was a very unpleasant discussion and a very high tone. Just before, Valdés had already said goodbye to his players telling them that he was going to go up to that office, where Jordi Roura and Aureli Altimira were also . He already went in search of being thrown out, ”maintain club sources, who say that this measure will be taken this Monday. Valdés, personal commitment of President Josep Maria Bartomeu in his effort to recruit former footballers of the most successful era, will put an end to a stage as convulsive as short: 11 weeks.

Valdés arrived in Barcelona on July 19 willing to introduce a methodology created by himself and decisive in the conflict. He calls it Futtack , and it serves to order his players as if they were chess pieces . The centrals are pawns, the ends are bishops, the sides are towers ... Players must mix on a board divided into quarters. Ilaix Moriba, one of the stars of the quarry, must be the king. Or the queen could be Nico González, son of Fran, former legend of Deportivo. «A new intellectual and political era is coming. And also another football. More crowded, more technological. With Futtack I propose an attacking football, dynamic and very wide. 360 degrees, ”argued Valdés.

System change

In the offices of Barcelona, ​​however, they did not understand the magnitude of the revolution that Valdés planned until his team concluded their summer tours. «Everything explodes at the inauguration of the Estadi JohanCruyff. Those responsible for the sports area were very worried to see that he was going to play with a 4-4-2. It is not that it is forbidden here, it is that it is a sacrilege. In base football you should always draw a 4-3-3. Or a 3-4-3 when there are problems . Not only that, but it changed almost every footballer. There it was already called a chapter », they respond in the offices. Valdés, on the other hand, refused to accept any type of interference in his work.

The leaders also warned Valdés that he should take care of club bets, such as Ilaix Moriba, whom in the entity they compare with Pogba and renewed with a clause of 100 million euros. « The lineups were not told, but there were a number of players who had to play. He was not advised. Valdés replied that he was doing the team he wanted, ”Joan Gamper explained from the Ciutat Esportiva, where they also allude to the coach's refusal to give his players to Barça B.“ That's why he changed the training in the afternoon, which caused the complaints from parents because their children could not go to class ».

In Barcelona they reproach Valdés for several episodes that have occurred during the last two months. As his public disagreement with a press officer because he had no table and chair to attend the media - "in Barça B, for example, as there is not so much media coverage, coaches usually respond to journalists standing up," they argue. in the club-, a fight with the physical trainer of Juvenile A before the players or their refusal to attend various ordinary activities of the entity, such as the presentation of the methodology department of Paco Seirul·lo, a dinner with the rest of the coaches or the snacks that are celebrated with the rival team in the matches of the Youth League.

More matches at the Estadi Johan Cruyff

The former goalkeeper also claimed to train and play more games in the new Estadi Johan Cruyff , where his team plays the Youth League, and Barça B and Women play their matches. "He has already been told in a meeting the meetings he would have there. The grass is freshly laid and needs to be spotless. The subsidiary and the Feminine do not even train there. But he already opened a front with the gardener," they reply from the Barcelona.

Valdés, meanwhile, did not like being denied a barbecue with his team at La Masia . Barcelona was that day changing food suppliers, with several trucks occupying the space. Svetislav Pesic, coach of the first basketball team, had also asked to organize a meal in the Catalan sports city. "That also ended up screaming with those responsible for La Masia. Pesic understood, but Valdés did not," replies a source from the entity.

The relationship between the goalkeeper and the club of his life was never simple. Valdés, perhaps one of the best goalkeepers in the history of Barcelona, ​​a hero in Paris and who as a Barca conquered 26 titles (including three Champions), left the Camp Nou after on March 26, 2014 he broke his knee in a match against Celta. He did not renew. He chose to leave for Augsburg, where he took public transportation every day to attend his recovery sessions. Alone. From that time even today he keeps in his pockets three coins, which allow him to remember what that tram cost him . In January 2018 he announced his retirement after passing through Manchester United (where he met Louis van Gaal, the coach who gave him the alternative at Camp Nou with 20 years after he was about to fire him for refusing to play with him). subsidiary), the Standard of Liege and the Middlesbrough. He began his career as a coach in the youth of Moratalaz, from where he dreamed the dream of returning home.

Before Juvenile A of Barcelona, ​​directed at La Pobla de Mafumet by his assistant Quim Ramon, won this Saturday at Nàstic (1-2), Valdés went to the Ciutat Esportiva to collect his gear. Five years later, another hard goodbye .

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