There are two kinds of coaches: the ones that get blamed once his team under performs and the ones whose players are deemed not good enough. First impressions are what makes this distinction.
It doesn’t matter how many clubs Jose Mourinho fails at, he will always get job offers because it is very natural for people to believe there was something divine about his beginnings at FC Porto.
Again, first impressions matter most. The second ones are hardly noticed and even if they are equally impressive, the disappointment associated with the beginning never wears off.
When Pep Guardiola came from a relatively obscure Team B Coach position to lead the Barcelona to the treble, that set the pace for what most of his career will look like. Not the same can be said of their current coach Ernesto Valverde.
As the season draws to its midpoint, news reaching Spain has it that Barca’s trust in Valverde is as good as the clause revealed to be inserted in Netherland’s national team head coach Ronald Koeman. He made a deal to part with the Dutch team anytime Barcelona activates his release clause.
Even if coaches get sacked with reckless abandon at nearly every club, allowing this to leak to the public is particularly embarrassing for Valverde who has been constantly accused of making Barcelona less than sum of its parts. But even he must have seen this coming.
Looking at Koeman’s history: him being a former Barca player, getting schooled at Ajax, coaching there and having relatively successful stints at Southampton and Everton, there was always going to be that possibility that Camp Nou will need his service one day.
Valverde had the chance to earn Barca’s trust but he never did. Even if he leads them to a treble this season, that dread that deep down, he is still a fraud will eventually see him replaced.