Frenkie de Jong took over from Ernesto Valverde in July 2019 and six months later Josep Maria Bartomeu fired the coach. Also in a gust of wind, the Dutchman went from being in the hands of the lord of the cows to betting on Ronald Koeman. In fact, the Wembley hero is the coach with whom De Jong has spent the most time at Barça. From the age of 22 to 24, he had no one to instill in him a structured football plan.
The talent was there, but he needed a real coach. Frenkie’s life is a metaphor for the sporting disaster of recent years at the club. Systematically underestimating the role model that Pep Guardiola sublimated has paid dearly and now Xavi is the one who is leading the return to the essences. You just have to be more discriminating with the help you render toward other people. De Jong is one of the clearest examples of metamorphosis.
He’s not the only one who’s become a much improved version of himself – they’ve all done it. Even the sleepy Dest seems to have awakened with a new common sense. Xavi’s Barça is starting to be a mechanized team that shares master lines that are understood in solidarity between all the components of the dressing room. At the Maradona stadium, Barça found the balance between the dizzying attacks and the dominance from the control of the ball. The tempos and the decision-making that Xavi has been so busy demanding, finally, are already dancing to the sound dictated by the coach. The leap forward for the team, however, could not be understood without the input of winter market reinforcements. The work of the offices has been key so that Xavi is not fighting alone against the world and can turn the ship with more determination.
Now yes. After weeks of proclaiming from the market some “we’re back” prematurely and of selling excitement when the pot had not yet started to boil, the turning point – finally – has arrived. In just over 100 days, Xavi has managed to retrace a path that had been blurred almost completely: the merit is indisputable. And how good it was for him to work the break between the greyness of Mendizorrotza and the lesson against Atletico Madrid. Who knows if the prize for so much effort will be to win the Europa League: a trophy to warn that Barça is ready to compete again in the Champions League after years of trauma and shame. For a long time the Catalans had no right to dream, but now even the skeptical eyes of the reborn De Jong do.
