Can idealist Quique Setien make Barcelona the team they want to be once again?

New manager Quique Setien is sure to bring a style of play that will be popular at Barcelona, but can his appointment heal the club’s wounds?

As he had almost every day for the past two-and-a-half years, Ernesto Valverde took training at Barcelona’s Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper training facility on Monday. This was no ordinary day, though. The 55-year-old must have thought he’d led his last session in charge of the Catalan club after a weekend of conjecture about who would replace him, but having been treated so harshly Valverde was afforded no dignity right to the end.

By later the same evening, Barcelona had finally sacked Valverde after a day of pretending nothing was happening when everyone, including the man himself, felt the undercurrents. He left the Camp Not having won La Liga in each of his two seasons at the helm, with Barca still top of the table despite some recent patchy performances and results. None of this spared Valverde from derision and fury.

Valverde probably deserved better, but to grasp why he was sacked and replaced by Quique Setien, a manager whose greatest La Liga achievement was a sixth place finish with Real Betis two seasons ago, it’s important to understand the identity crisis that has festered at Barcelona over the past few years.

As a pragmatist, Valverde was always an awkward fit as Barca boss. He became the embodiment of the board’s dilution of the famous club’s values, a symbol of how club president Josep Maria Bartomeu has no vision for the future of Barcelona. Next year’s presidential election could see Bartomeu forced out and so the sacking of Valverde, and subsequent hiring of Setien, might well be a last ditch attempt to turn public opinion.

Setien is the antithesis of Valverde. He is an idealist who favors retention of the ball and patient build-up play. Valverde never truly unleashed Barcelona, but the appointment of Setien heralds the start of a more cavalier age at the Camp Nou.

There will now be more players ahead of the ball than before, possibly more goals. The hope is that Setien’s style of play will be closer to that of the great Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola’s, an ideology that is threaded through Barcelona’s DNA.

Setein himself has said that as a player “it was only when I saw Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona play that I started to understand how things really worked.”

This still represents an almighty gamble by Barca. Setien might be a good stylistic fit, but it’s not known how he will respond to the scrutiny he will inevitably be placed under as manager of arguably the sport’s biggest club.

Barcelona fans have longed for their team to put on more of a spectacle, but will they be satisfied if results decline as a byproduct? Given Setien’s track record, it’s a scenario that could materialize. Betis, for instance, were La Liga’s most entertaining team for a while, but never quite matched that with results.

There was still a certain glaze to Setien’s gaze as he spoke to the media for the first time as Barca’s new head coach on Tuesday, as if he couldn’t quite believe what had happened over the past 24 hours.

“I have no problem saying I’ve admired them for 12 years, but admiration is one thing and Messi is Messi, Busquets is Busquets, Pique [too], but everyone has to be in their place,” he said. “I’m sure the relationship will be extraordinary. I am direct, honest, I don’t beat about the bush. If there is something I don’t like, I will say so.

“What I always say in these situations is that I will only guarantee one thing: that my team will play well. Las Palmas, Lugo, Betis… if you followed them you know we had an identity, you saw it, we played good football. I defend my ideas. If I have to die with them, I’ll die.”

That sort of passion will play well with Barcelona fans who see the appointment of Setien as a footballing heart transplant. The former Betis and Las Palmas boss is charged with getting the blood pumping again at the Camp Nou. It’ll most likely be entertaining, it’ll certainly be worth watching, but will it work? Politically and ideologically, there’s a lot riding on the gamble paying off.