FC Barcelona fired Eusebio today follow a long disappointing season. He is the second disliked figure, after Zubizarreta, to be let go by Barça and this leaves just president Bartomeu as the last disliked man standing.
After 150 matches, the era of Eusebio is over. For many Barça fans, including myself, this day could not come any sooner. With Barça B hovering over the relegation zone, his sacking was a must. After 24 matches this season, the team had just 7 victories and failed to win back to back games since their fourth match, which was a three game winning streak in September. Thus, the B team had won only 4 matches since September and now find themselves two points from the relegation zone.
Eusebio never won the fans over with his lineups, formations and tactics. For over three seasons, he got to work with a superb group of young players but never inspired them or us. One of the biggest criticism of his era was that he never truly developed players for the first the team like Pep and Luis Enrique did during their time as Barça B manager. Actually, you could make the argument that Barça B players regressed under him. Donguo has been there for a few seasons and has yet to show us any legitimate progress.
The fact that he won 74 matches out of 150 and guided the team to third place last season is irrelevant. His handling of the team is what mattered and he came up short there. The fact that he benches the likes of rising stars such as Sergi Samper and Adama is inexcusable and with the current Barça regime unpopular as they are now, it was time for Bartomeu to ax Eusebio. His replacement will be Jordi Vinyals, who helped guide Barça U-19 team to winning the UEFA Youth League last season. With elections coming up, it’s doubtful that this is a long term job for him but hopefully he can help steer the ship around, or avoid relegation at least for the next guy to take over next season.
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