The coach with crazy ideas who drove Leo Messi crazy

BarcelonaIn January 2020, Barça sacked Ernesto Valverde and signed Quique Setién as their new manager. In his first talk in the locker room, he introduced his assistant, Eder Sarabia, and warned them that he had "a strong personality." Josep Maria Bartomeu, then president, and the board members accompanying him laughed at the remark. The players, not so much. Eight months later, Setién and Sarabia left unceremoniously after one of the most resounding sporting failures in recent years, with the humiliating 8-2 defeat to Bayern Munich in the Champions League. But above all, they left behind a legacy of disgrace. a string of conflicts with the playersToday, Elche's head coach, Sarabia, faces Barça (6:30 p.m., DAZN) eager to prove himself.

It's difficult to find many positive aspects of Sarabia's time at Barça. Neither the sporting nor the institutional situation was good. The pandemic finished everything off, as former directors and teammates at ARA say. Despite being the assistant coach, he had a much more prominent role than he should have had and clashed with the senior players. He was impulsive and got heated both in training and in matches. The most well-known image is that of the water break in a match against Celta Vigo, where he tried to correct Leo Messi, who ignored him twice. Similar incidents had already occurred in training, but without cameras, they didn't receive media attention. Over time, Sarabia acknowledged his mistake and admitted that he lacked "chemistry" with the Rosario-born striker.

2020 was a bad time to take charge of the Barça bench.

It was a Barça on its deathbed. The tension was palpable, and some players would board planes through the back door to avoid greeting board members during away matches. With the pandemic and the negotiations to reduce salaries, the problems only worsened. The players wielded power they didn't deserve, to the point of blocking Valverde's dismissal in the summer of 2019 after the 4-0 defeat in Liverpool. Ultimately, Valverde was sacked in January after being eliminated in the Super Cup semi-finals. Bartomeu wanted to hire Xavi Hernández, but the Terrassa native wasn't convinced, so they opted for the Setién-Sarabia duo, who championed Johan Cruyff's style of play. They had made a name for themselves at Las Palmas and Betis, but They had no experience in a locker room of this level

"Setién had a more conciliatory approach, but Sarabia came in like a bull in a china shop. He had a strong personality and didn't understand what it meant to be at Barça," recalls a former teammate, who describes him as "a die-hard Cruyff disciple who doesn't just live off football," but lives for it. A "good person, friendly and with a funny way of speaking" who "had good intentions, but paid the price for being a newbie."

"He hadn't been a professional player and hadn't done anything remarkable as a coach. When he started giving orders to the stars, they didn't take him seriously. And when he lost his temper, it was even worse," they remember in Sant Joan Despí. Another legendary scene occurred at the Bernabéu (2-0), where he lashed out at the players because they weren't doing what he thought was right. The cameras caught it, and many programs were talking about it for days. "Sarabia apologized, but that day marked a turning point in the locker room."

Sarabia begins his solo career after leaving Barça

His adventure at Barça was short and marked his last contract with Setién as his manager. From that moment on, he forged a solo career. To everyone's surprise, the first team to hire him was Andorra, owned by Gerard Piqué. When the Barça defender told his teammates, Leo Messi said he had chosen "the best." "Did he say that seriously or ironically? I don't know. I prefer to think he genuinely believed it," Sarabia later remarked in an interview. "He's a good coach. Perhaps not for Barça, but certainly for professional football. He proved that in Andorra and Elche," they recall at the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper. Sarabia achieved two promotions with Piqué's team In the three and a half seasons he managed them. At Elche, he led the team back to La Liga in his first year in charge, and they are currently closer to European qualification than relegation. Always striving to play attractive football. A strategy he won't change at Montjuïc. "I know Barça well. They're the team I know best. They're better than us, and if we played ten times, they'd beat us most of the time. But I won't change our style of play. Maybe they'll score five against us, we'll finish 4-4 or 3-4. The fans know what to expect and they identify with it."