FC Barcelona defender Oscar Mingueza reveals how Ronald Koeman lost the dressing room

FC Barcelona’s Spanish international Oscar Migueza has revealed that their former Ronald Koeman lost the dressing room in this campaign. He highlighted that the players lost trust in the Dutchman’s process and hence their efforts did not reflect on the field.

Koeman’s time at Camp Nou has come to an end with the team management deciding to take a leap of faith with their former midfielder maestro Xavi Hernandez as Koeman’s successor. But Koeman’s tenure at the club was always surrounded by controversies starting from Lionel Messi’s departure to Paris Saint Germain to the dismissal of Luis Suarez. Koeman’s style of play was also much criticised. People wanted to see the Catalans dominate possession and play fearless football, something that they lacked since Messi’s departure.

Minguez recently shared that how Koeman had lost the dressing room during his last few days as Barcelona manager. Speaking to Esport3, he stated, “The dressing room needed a change. There was no atmosphere. Players were not happy. And when you’re not well and things don’t turn out, you need a change. The team stopped trusting [Koeman’s methods] and everyone tried to fix things on their own. We weren’t good, neither individually nor collectively.”

The young defender highlighted how the dynamics were not that great and the players did not play as a team. All of them were looking to play their own game and that is where the team suffered.

“When the dynamics aren’t good, everyone does what they can but we lacked self-belief.”

However, the fans now feel that Xavi can be the person to guide the club to safer shores. There are some issues on and off the field which the former Barcelona midfielder needs to resolve. While most fans are very hopeful about Xavi’s appointment, he still needs to win them by playing great football and bringing their season back on track.

Speaking on Xavi’s training sessions, Minguez only had great things to say about his current manager. Xavi’s training is very focused on the idea of what we want to do on the pitch. It is good that we have a clear idea and that we all work in a specific way to obtain a good result as a team,” he added.

Xavi’s reign at Barcelona will start with their match against Espanyol and the fans will be hoping to start the new era with a win.