Ronald Koeman maintains his defeatist attitude at FC Barcelona

Ahead of their trip to Lisbon, Ronald Koeman is trying to keep the same defeatist attitude that no FC Barcelona player likes to hear.

It’s almost as if Ronald Koeman didn’t want to continue coaching FC Barcelona with his defeatist attitude towards the game. Having recently missed the previous La Liga match against Levante, the players seemed liberated for 90 minutes without the gaffer. But he is returning today on the club’s trip to Benfica for their second Champions League match. The last game they played of this tournament was none other than the humiliating 0-3 against Bayern Munich at Camp Nou.

After that, some supporters sided with Koeman when he stated that the club wasn’t ready to compete against the best. However, the players think differently as Gerard Pique or Sergi Roberto said during exchanges with the press. They refuse to accept the notion that Barcelona doesn’t have the squad to compete for all the titles. On Sunday, the team proved they can win a match with relative ease. The difference is that Koeman wasn’t there to ruin all the fun the players had.

🗣️ Koeman: ''Hay que ser realista. Hoy en día, con los cambios que estamos haciendo con el equipo, es complicado estar a la altura de equipos muy importantes''.

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Koeman keeps his disagreement with the players.

Now that the gaffer is returning for the Champions League, Koeman is still saying they can’t possibly compete for any title this season. This defeatist attitude will get old really fast amongst the FC Barcelona players. Marca picked up Koeman’s statements today ahead of the squad’s trip to Lisbon: “We have to be realistic, right now, with the changes we’ve had in the team, it’s hard to be at the level of the top teams.

“Ansu Fati was very tired on Monday, emotionally it took its toll. We have to remember how it can effect the mental side of things with him. On Tuesday he trained without any problems, we’ll try to keep increasing his time, it depends on how he is. We want to give him more minutes, but I can’t say before every game how many minutes he’ll play. No, it’s impossible that the last 16 is at stake. The second game of six can never be decisive.”