Herding the pack from green to green – the enigmatic journey of Queque Setien.
The football world was momentarily stunned when Enrique Setien Solar was recently named as FC Barcelona’s new manager. Quien??
Enrique ‘Quique’ Setién Solar, or ‘Quique’ to those who know of him. The Spanish former professional footballer who played as a central midfielder and was later in his career a club manager. Tagged with the nickname El Maestro, Quique gained some measure of fame for his Racing de Santander spiels, where he began and ended his 19-year professional career at the club and having amassed a total of 374 La Liga matches with 58 goals over 15 seasons. Today he is the newly-installed head coach of the legendary La Liga Barcelona Club of Johan Cruyff and Lionel Messi fame.
The next inevitable question would invariably be how did a manager with a relative lack of success at the highest levels get to occupy the hot seat vacated by a luminary, his predecessor Ernesto Valverde, who had won two La Liga titles in two years besides navigating the team to the top once again even in this mid season?
Such is the often bewildering nature of professional League football that befuddles the minds of even the most stoic, experienced football professionals from players to managers. After all, Setien’s best La Liga finish was as Real Betis coach in 2018, herding them to sixth place and qualifying for the Europa League, at best.
Setien himself was somewhat non-plussed with his appointment:
“I never imagined this [appointment], even in my wildest dreams. Yesterday I was out walking with cows in my village and today I’m coaching the best players in the world!”
Granted that the pastoral, undulating greens of cattle farming are dissimilar to the greens of football pitches, especially those at Camp Nou. However, giving the matter greater latitude for more serious contemplation, perhaps the task of raising the finest herds producing the highest quality meat and milk consistently might not be all that diametrically opposed to that of putting together a top-notch team of individuals with a various assortment of skills and idiosyncratic temperaments that can geld together to score goals.
Whilst Setien has no grand coaching honours to his name, he was yet able to deliver an example of the kickass brand of football that he was somehow able to coax out of his team in November 2018 last season when his Real Betis squad actually handed out a convincing 4-3 thumping of the invincible Barcelona at Camp Nou.
This incredible feat made them the first team ever in two years to triumph there. Not surprisingly, they were also the last side to do so. Hence, if one were to ponder if that was the litmus test or job interview for the coveted position of head coach, Queque Setien obviously cleared the hurdle with flying colours!
To his credit, Setien had also secured a win against Atlético last season before exiting in style at the Bernabéu with Real Betis, handing out a 2-0 defeat to Real Madrid. Proof that great wine truly mellows well?
To all other observers, Setien’s appointment is apparently a huge gamble for the Catalans, that’s a given, considering his relatively modest achievements as a coach in the past. Yet he is tasked with the job of restoring the club’s iconic passing style besides bringing silverware to the club. Surely there must be more to it than meets the eye as far as the club’s bosses and top directors are concerned? Valverde himself had remorsely discovered that winning domestic silverware is not enough at Barcelona as the fans hunger for Champions League success going in tandem with quality performances.
However, in a stylistic sense at least, Setien should fit in perfectly at Barcelona having been inspired by Johan Cruyff’s side while playing against them in the late 1980s. A self-confessed disciple of the Barça legend, he loves playing the kind of possession-based passing style that is long synonymous with the Catalan club. He told The Coach’s Voice:
“I remember when Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona came along. From then on, I started to make sense of what I had felt throughout life, through my career. I started to really watch football. To analyse it. To understand what I felt, and what I wanted to put into practice when I became a coach.”
This is perhaps quintessentially what the big bosses at Barcelona had been looking for all this while. To usher in again the distinctive possession-centric passing flair of an earlier supreme era. The passing of the baton to Pep Guardiola and subsequently to Tito Vilanova had seen Barcelona losing some of their trademark swagger despite maintaining the ability to collect trophies at an impressive rate. Under Luis Enrique and Ernesto Valverde, the focus underwent another paradigm shift from teamwork to the individual, with elite players such as Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez becoming the crux and key anchormen.
Queque Setien, the El Maestro and chess buff who’s proven to be a mastermind and maverick with confirmed appreciable skills on the chest board, must now bring his most brilliant strategies to play at Camp Nou and ensure the perpetuation of the iconic Barcelona identity to continue their dominance in the new era.
Setien’s emphatic words best say it all in the proverbial nutshell:
“I want to win everything I can. This club demands to get better each year and collect as many trophies as they can, and play well doing it.”
Share to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to Email AppThe former Racing Santander and Atletico Madrid midfielder’s tactical nous was lost at the helm of Betis, with fans turning against him despite the attacking possession football he played, seeking more passion and less precision.