Ernesto Valverde returns to the Camp Nou

The 'Txingurri' has been the last Barça coach to lift LaLiga

MADRID, 21 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

FC Barcelona will receive this Sunday (9:00 p.m.) Athletic Club at the Spotify Camp Nou, in a duel that will see Ernesto Valverde return for the first time to what was his home from 2017 to 2020, where he touched the sky in the League and couldn't prevent chaos on 'Champions' for two and a half years.

An adventure that came to an end in the middle of the 2019/20 season, after the defeat in the first 'Final Four' of the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia, falling in the semifinals against Atlético de Madrid in a duel they won with ten minutes to go.

A stumbling block that increased the disappointment of the Barça fans, who dragged the setback at Anfield, in which they were left out of the Champions League final by losing 4-0 and letting the 3-0 lead of the first leg slip away. Camp Nou, in addition to their previous loss the previous year against Roma, when they also let themselves come back from 4-1 in the first leg, then in the quarterfinals.

All this coupled with another defeat in the Cup final against Valencia CF. Thus, Valverde was sentenced and marked by some part of Barcelona for the apparent loss of 'Barça DNA' and an offensive and colorful game that was increasingly difficult to see on the pitch. However, his departure did not translate into titles and the culé fans could only savor the 2021 Copa del Rey with Ronald Koeman.

However, his goodbye came at a time when in the League he had lost only three games in the 19 games played, something unusual in recent years. In fact, in the first season only one game was lost, and in the second campaign there were three defeats -one of them at home against Quique Setién's Real Betis- and, the last, with the title already won.

This intensity of his 'culé' journey kept him away from the world of football until this season, when 'Txingurri' returned to Lezama in his third stage as coach. Now, in a meteoric start with Athletic Club, he returns to the Camp Nou as the last LaLiga champion coach with Barcelona and on whose bench he sat for the last time on December 21, 2019, with a 4-1 victory against Deportivo Alaves.

Precisely, the Extremaduran conquered the last two trophies of the Catalan team, where he relieved Luis Enrique Martínez, in the domestic competition in 2018 and 2019. A regularity that disappeared with his dismissal executed by the president, at that time, Josep Maria Bartomeu.

His record also includes a Copa del Rey and a Super Cup as a legacy of his adventure at Barça. Thus, the Basque coach touched the sky and the mud in a few frenetic years that ended up wearing him down. As a consequence, he has been slow to take the reins of a team and now, with renewed energy, he will try to assault his old fort to consolidate the European spot for the 'Lions', who have not won in the culé fiefdom for 21 years.