Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde dismissed the idea that he, as his predecessors Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique had done before, would win the a league, Cup and Champions League treble in his first season at the helm.
Valverde has regalvanised the lacklustre Barcelona side of last season, taking over the team that had just lost Neymar in a world record €222 million fee to Paris Saint-Germain.
The Spaniard went about setting up the team in a new 4-4-2 system without the Brazilian and in doing so revitalised their fortunes by making them a more well-rounded outfit. The changes he has brought about has also had a positive effect on the form of their star man Lionel Messi who has been much more involved in the build-up play this season.
But despite an eight-point advantage over Atletico Madrid, a cup final date with Sevilla in April and a relatively easy draw with Roma in the Champions League quarter-finals, Valverde insists that a Barca treble is still a very big ask.
“I don’t believe in prophecies,” said the Basque coach whose Barca outfit host Atletico Bilbao in a La Liga clash at the Camp Nou on Sunday.
“Everything is possible and we will give it absolutely everything,” he promised nevertheless.
“I would have signed in my own blood if you’d offered me this position at the start of the season.”
But Valverde pointed to Serie A outfit Roma as the obstacle that could end up being the difference between his Barcelona team and those of Guardiola and Enrique.
“Roma beat Chelsea 3-0, a team against which we struggled,” he said after a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge had preceded a Messi inspired 3-0 win at the Camp Nou.
“Roma also finished above both Chelsea and Atletico (in the group stage) and Atletico is our main league rival, so you get a bit of the measure of the size of rival they are,” he pointed out.
Valverde however appreciates the magnitude of the game against Bilbao first and foremost in the grand scale of things.
“The countdown is on. After the international break we have a tough April, in which it is make or break time for our season. That’s why it is important to start out by winning against Athletic.”
