Barcelona travel to Lisbon this evening to do battle with Benfica in the second round of the group stage of the Champions League. Ronald Koeman’s men took a 3-0 beating from Bayern Munich at Camp Nou in the first round, and will be keen to get back to winning ways. Benfica drew 0-0 with Dynamo Kyiv in their opener.
Barcelona sit sixth in La Liga and have endured a mixed start to the season. They’ve struggled to kickstart their new era, having lost Lionel Messi to Paris Saint-Germain. They did, however, beat Levante 3-0 at the weekend and welcomed back Ansu Fati, who’d missed 323 days through injury. Benfica are top of the Primeira Liga, and have won seven out of seven league games.
As well as on-field troubles, Barcelona have been wrought with uncertainly off the pitch, too. Koeman is at war with his president, Joan Laporta, with the pair’s relationship visibly worn. The Dutchman has been keen to play down expectations at Camp Nou this season, a line of rhetoric that doesn’t sit well with Laporta.
“It’s a very important game,” Laporta said from Lisbon about the Benfica clash in comments carried by Marca. “We have to go out to win. We need our first three points in the Champions League to return to where we should be; first place in the group. Benfica, we know, aren’t an easy opponent. They’ve won seven games in a row. But we have a team that’s progressing more and more and we’re confident that we’ll win today.”
Laporta was also clear about the importance of Barcelona’s youth system to the club’s identity. “La Masia is the way and the inalienable style of play,” he continued. “This is a genuine and recognisable style which no other club in the world has. If we make it compatible with high-performance sporting techniques we put ourselves on another level. That way we will be unbeatable.”
Masa this team is just trash
How can he say that, and still keep a coach who has a different filosofi?
If Koeman stays, we would be lucky to end up in Europa league
The coach need to be sack tonight.
L.D. Jong is a player to start why coutinho and Ansu on the bench.
Koeman should leave pls
😭😭😭
koeman did not worth Barcelona coaching he is too low for barcelona,
we don’t need him again let him go
fine messi his gone but we still have a quality players here enough
he should go please
Koeman must fall!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
imagine him starting degong ahead of coutinho and anus fati
he is very poor for barcelona
with him we will go without a trough
this is the right time for him to go
he is our problems
he allow Suarez and messi to leave barca bcos he don’t want anybody that will talk to him wen ever he is wrong. l wonder wat lapota sees in this trophy less man. y not sack him
Lol, Laporta didn’t hire him and has been giving him a chance and now he will fire him guaranteed!! So you can’t blame Laporta unless he doesn’t fire him, he would look weak and would deserve the terrible season Koeman is bringing. If we beat atletico somehow we go into 2nd place in LaLiga, we have still played one less game than the rest the league, so that would be fine, as for CL we are screwed haha… We will be dropped to the Europa if we are lucky and even score enough points to get into that. But we need a new manager NOW. We need To get Roberto Martinez or my other pick is Leeds United manager and Argentine Marcelo Bielsa who got Argentina to the final of the WC and can manage a young team as he has shown.
i have never seen worth and stupidity coach like this koeman,totally he did not deserved to be a barca coach just sack him pls!!! park ur old boro and walk out bcoz u dont know which player are u goin to play with.just go we dont like u koeman!!!!
Very stupid coach korman…pls go we don’t need him
He don’t know what to do with the team besides we still have quality team that can compete
We dont want koeman to stop anymore, go go go
Apart from keoman who remain the problem of barca with his clueless playing philosophy there are other player who doesn’t deserve to be in that team; such as pique, busguet, coutinho, alba and sergi Roberto this listed above players can no longer meet the club standard, talking about the current malady financial clog faced by the club which is one of the ever worst financial flaws perpetrate by the previous management that actually undermine the club from acquiring the right and good quality player into the team more so if the club president fails to lay off koeman with other redundant players listed earlier am afraid the club standard and reputation will keep mitigating and capsize beyond revamp.
#koemanmustgo
Thank you very much for your observations, the players you listed above are our biggest problem. I wonder why barca will keep such players up to this current campaign and the coach too is nonsense
I said its from the beginning that this Korman coach will not help the team because he have never manage any club and more over national team is different from club . There’s no plan for the team in his coaching and no any tactics playing from the players. We are Barca Barca Barca and our style of play is 4-3-3 both home or away from generations till this days , so this Man wants to change the formation of the club which is not helping the team at all at all . Plus the Holland players that he is pampering must end and the right players have to be giving the time and chance to play. I always get worried when watching Barca play because i dont see any tactics the team is playing . Pedri and De Jong dont have to be playing at the Central midfield because they dont release the passes to the upfront or strikers in time , they love to hold the ball for long and De Jong have to share the defensive midfield with Sergio . See we have quality players in but the problem is the coach plus the right tactics to use . If we play 4-3-3 tomorrow , we will surprise the world but after tomorrow’s game, Maybe Mr. President is thinking so so much of the 10 to 12 Million Euros we have to pay to this foolish Korman after we sack him , because its much money and besides we are in Financial Crisis oo , So his doing something to provoke us to sack him because he wants to leave i swear .
he should be sacked. he has no vision as a coach