Farewell, Coutinho, the second of the three Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Only one left
Phillippe Coutinho is at Aston Villa now.
On loan.
With Barça so desperate to have him gone that they are picking up a hunk of his salary.
And an optional buy clause for 40m, a fraction of the king’s ransom he cost.
Dermot Corrigan goes into what went wrong in fantastic depth in his latest piece for The Athletic, one you should make time to read. Coutinho went off the rails in fantastic fashion that had the “Told ya so” crowd in rare form. But there is a larger problem with the Three Horsemen of the Apocalaypse — Dembele, Coutinho and Griezmann, with roots in foolish transfer policy, error after error and riding the SS Dogma directly into the nearest iceberg.
Only a fool looks at a screw jutting out of a piece of wood and grabs a hammer. The wrong tool for the job will only ensure an incomplete task, wasted time and money. Yet FC Barcelona, sitting on a 222 million Euro windfall after Neymar went to Paris, decided, time after time, to buy various tools for work on the wrong kinds of jobs. And every time it bought the most expensive tool in the shop, writing the adage, “A fool and his money are soon parted” in neon bright enough to be seen from space.
Ousmane Dembele was at the time of his acquisition, the most exciting, dynamic attacker in world football. With the ball at his feet at Dortmund, he created excitement every time he drove up the pitch with his fellow gazelles. Barça bought him, stuck him into a static system where the ball moved slowly and Messi was the playmaker, and wondered why he wasn’t working out.
Further, club supporters kept expecting him to catch on to a system for which he was completely unsuited, screaming about how he lacked “football IQ,” etc, etc, as though he was a short, slow Masia whiz named Jordi, who everyone taps for greatness because he “understands the game.”
Antoine Griezmann was fresh off World Cup fame, a dynamic force at both ends of the pitch at Atletico de Madrid and for France, a connective player who thrived while being at the center of everything, as capable of moving into space to score a goal as knocking off a deft 1-2 to set up a teammate. He was also part of a stalwart defensive structure, tracking back with effective aplomb.
At Barça he was tried everywhere: winger, mid, hybrid, 9, in an attempt to find working space because the space that he usually occupies was filled by the greatest player in history. Griezmann was a poor fit, but could make a go of it often enough to be interesting even if not fully effective.
And then there was Coutinho, a whiz with the ball at his feet just outside the box, dribbling, drifting, driving, creating. It seemed like was making it up as he went along because he was, as an instinct player who reacted to opponents. Possessed of a powerful shot and a creative mind, he came to Barcelona on a sea of huzzahs and an undercurrent of doubt, because his usual space was occupied. Compounding this was the greater absurdity that people honestly thought he could be an Iniesta replacement when hardly anything about how he played indicated that would work.
FC Barcelona had a technical staff that looked at three of the best players in world football and never for a second considered that in each and every one of their cases, not only were they ill-suited for the way the team played but even if they were, their ideal slots were taken by a genius and club icon in Lionel Messi.
And they bought them anyway. These three horsemen signaled the onset of a fiscal apocalypse that the club is still reeling from. Griezmann was moved on loan with a buy option, same with Coutinho. And Dembele will leave in the summer on a free, by all indications. Almost a half-billion Euros tossed into the wind for a fraction of the initial cost thanks to poor planning, inept management and a dogmatic approach to a game embraced even by people who should know better.
If your team plays a certain way, cool. Do that. But buy players who suit that style rather than overspending for poor fits who can’t be at their best because nothing about how the team functions or plays suits them. If your Cruijffian dictates demand that your winger be adept at possession, working in tight space and always making the right decision on the ball, then acquire that player. Luis Enrique looked at Neymar and said, “I would be a fool to restrict this man,” and devised a system that let him go to work. Where’s the midfield? Celebrating a treble. How you use a tool matters.
Barça bought tools and gave them to handymen who are the wrong kind of repairmen. One, Valverde, just adapted to a situation rather than creating a template in which things that didn’t quite fit could have excelled. Koeman didn’t know what to do except what he thought would work, so he kept making the same errors as previous managers because the exact same conditions existed in a slow, unathletic team that everyone in the supporter, boardroom and media universe expected to play a certain way.
That Dembele, the only one of the original Horsemen left, is considered the biggest failure even as he is possessed of the most talent is also illustrative. Only now, at the end of his time, does Barça have a manger who looked at him and thought, “Why the hell aren’t we giving him the ball and letting him do stuff on the move?” Dembele as playmaker. Imagine that.
But Dembele is getting an opportunity that Coutinho or Griezmann hardly ever got in a consistent run at something like a role that suits his abilities at a club that doesn’t seem interested in adapting to players, but rather insists that players adapt to it. And sometimes, as with Coutinho, it breaks them. Or sends them into a funk, as with Griezmann. Only Dembele blithely sails along like a man without a care in the world, as mentally undamaged as when he arrived, even as the physical damage would be sufficient to break other men.
And even when the Bank-Breaking Three wanted to do what they were best skilled at, they were in a system that made it impossible. Coutinho would do Coutinho things, only to find himself stranded in space. Where Salah or another attacker made that smart run at Liverpool, at Barça he was left alone and with one option: shoot. Hence Shootinho was born. Griezmann made his little flicks and dashes that in another, happier life found the Correas and Kokes and Costas as willing dance partners. At Barça he found wallflowers. Dembele would take a ball and take off, flying up the pitch only to get to the box and … where is everybody?
Barça is showing signs of intelligent life. Pedri was a genius signing, a player who fits into the idealized world of the team like hand in glove. Ferran Torres, acquired from Manchester City, is the precise kind of dynamic, hard-working player who makes runs into space that demand the ball. Eric Garcia is a Barça defender through a through, a glorified DM that plays in the box. Buying players who fit the way the team wants to play seems a weird thing. But Coutinho being flogged off to Villa for nothing but a hunk of his salary paid and a lot of hope, is a grim signal of the idiocy that used to stalk the halls. And idiocy is often expensive.
If Barça is lucky, they will make between 80 and 90m should Coutinho set the world alight at Villa and his buy option is exercised, as Atleti is almost dead certain to keep Griezmann. And nothing from Dembele. As with Coutinho, whose departure is in many ways like ridding yourself of a thing that never worked right — or at least that you could never figure out how to work, Dembele’s departure will bring the curtain down on a dark period for the club in its transfer dealings. Has anything been learned? Time and the summer will tell, but Haalandmania isn’t all that encouraging.