Replacing Ernesto Valverde will not be a cure-all for Barcelona’s issues

Barcelona changed managers despite being top of La Liga and alive in the Champions League. So What can we expect following this midseason change at the helm?

Barcelona have always prided themselves on being more than a club. Mes que un club is the credo brightly scripted on the Camp Nou seats, a brash reminder of the holier-than-thou mystique perpetrated by the Catalan club.

For the past decade, owing to a once-in-a-lifetime embarrassment of riches in terms of player talent, including possibly the greatest of all time, the Blaugrana lived up to their carefully crafted mystique. However, with the departures (Xavi, Andres Iniesta) and aging (Sergio Busquets, Gerard Pique) of that famous crop of La Masia players the curtain call for what that generation represented is here.

However, like a jilted lover, the fans are not ready to move on just yet. They pine for the eye candy, the free flowing champagne football days when the generational talents of the tiki-taka generation were peaking, and on full display.

Well, fast-forward a decade and World Cup champions Xavi and Iniesta, the brain and the engine of that legendary team respectively, are not walking through that Camp Nou tunnel. Lionel Messi is still Messi the GOAT, seemingly the only one not affected by aging, but by now he is surrounded by mere mortals. And here lies the rub.

What the Blaugrana faithful cannot come to grips with is that they were simply spoiled over the past decade by a level of play unlikely to be replicated in their lifetime. Sorry cules.

If somehow Josep Bartomeu, the current Barcelona president, managed to hire Pep and Klopp as co-head coaches with Jose Mourinho and Marcelo Bielsa as assistants, this team will still not come close to the artistry of 2009-2012. The product on the field is mostly a reflection of the players at a coach’s disposal and as such it will probably be somewhere between very good and excellent, but short of iconic.

When Ernesto Valverde was named head coach, the main critiques about Barcelona’s play concerned their backline. Pique was the only bona fide defender.

For various and unrelated reasons, the Yerry Mina, Thomas Vermaelen and Lucas Digne experiments all failed. Samuel Umtiti has spent more time in the physio’s office than on the field. Somehow Valverde managed to get the most of the Pique – Clement Lenglet center-back  combination and have a serviceable right back in Nelson Semedo. The number of goals allowed dropped from 37 to 29 in Valverde’s first season. Consequently the Catalans won the La Liga in comfortable fashion.

There is an argument to be made that Valverde fulfilled his main objective. His reputation — based on his prior experience at Atletic Bilbao and Valencia — was not as an innovator and disciple of attacking soccer. However, his attention to detail and technical acumen produced winning soccer.

That, for a number of reasons, ended up not being enough for the Camp Nou faithful.

Now that Valverde is out, that brings us to the following question:

What can we expect from Barcelona’s next technical staff?

Whether it be current manager Setien or manager-to-be Xavi (which seems inevitable), the challenges are many and sizable. The board and the fans made it clear that winning alone is not enough. There is a level of artistry expected from this club to go along with adding to the trophy cabinet.

With an aging Busquets still expected to provide both defensive support and link-up play to the attacking players alongside an over-the-hill Ivan Rakitic or Arturo Vidal, perhaps the expectations of fast-paced attacking football should be slightly tempered.

One of the main criticisms against Valverde was that his side played a pointless possession game characterized by sideways passing. Well, with Arthur out, Philippe Coutinho gone and Ousmane Dembele injured, the run of play will be dictated by over-the-hill, thirty-something workmen midfielders known for their discipline and tactical acumen rather than taking opposing players on and breaking the rhythm of play.

The main goal-scoring threat and the heart (and a big part of the soul) of the team, Luis Suarez, is out for the season.

Occasional spark-plug Dembele is out injured with no clear timetable for return in sight. This leaves the chance-creation tasks (once again) squarely on Messi’s shoulders with Antoine Griezmann as his main support, and 17-year-old Ansu Fati asked to grow up fast and shoulder a bigger load offensively. Short of other options or any possible additions in the January transfer window, the latest La Masia wunderkid Riqui Puig may be asked to accelerate his development and contribute right away.

This is hardly a roster that can be expected to dominate opponents and also produce eye-pleasing performances. As we have seen at country-level, Messi can only do so much with a supporting cast that is somewhere between average and adequate, but well short of world-class.

This is all to say that the fans who thought changing the coach will provide the solution are in for a rude awakening.

Perhaps the Champions League low points against Roma and Liverpool were embarrassing enough for a club (which believes it is actually more than a club) to justify firing the coach.

Believing the fix is just a matter of shuffling the technical staff is just as delusional as thinking a team of “has-beens” and potentials “stars-to-be” can produce the same stylistic performances as past World Cup champions and icons.