Why Losing Its Coach Isn’t the End of Barcelona… Yet

One of the best soccer teams of all time has lost its coach. Pep Guardiola said four years at the helm of Futbol Club Barcelona seemed like an eternity to him. He also said he’s lost the passion needed to keep going.

I can certainly understand that four years in a high-stakes, high-pressure job can wear a man down. Just look at what happens to US presidents in four years. Never mind, managing FC Barcelona is much harder!

Jokes aside, Pep Guardiola’s place in soccer history is guaranteed. He is credited with creating perhaps THE most beautiful expression of the beautiful game. Watching his Barcelona team pass the ball from side to side, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, was like watching a cobra lulling its victim into a quick death.

So the question is: can Pep’s beautiful Barça survive without him? We won’t know for sure until Barcelona plays a season or two under a new coach. The man named to replace Guardiola seems well-placed to keep following the same path. He is Tito Vilanova and, like Guardiola, he’s a product of the Barcelona Academy.

Homegrown talent has been the key to success under Guardiola, and can continue to be after him. The sheer number of fantastic players that has emerged from Barcelona’s youth system is so high that some feel Barcelona would have been great these past four years even without Guardiola.

I give the man more credit than that. He helped to elevate his players, managed their ups and downs, brought new young players up from the youth ranks. He wasn’t perfect, though. Barcelona did lose some big games over the past four years. And at times it seemed Guardiola did not have a Plan B for those games when the short-pass, constant ball possession style didn’t work.

But in the end, Barcelona’s success was based on the players. Guardiola’s genius was adapting his system of play to their strengths. In announcing his departure, Guardiola said that he’d imagined a million games in his head – but it was the players who turned his ideas into reality.

Those Barcelona superstars – Lionel Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta form the core of the team — are still there. They won’t forget how to play overnight. They have every intention to start winning again.

Just beware Barcelona: The trouble is likely to start when those players age into retirement. Someone will need to decide who comes next, and how they should play. That’s when the club will likely miss Pep Guardiola the most.

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