Every coach and every player in the Champions League dreams of winning the handle pot. One coach even dreams of a celebration with the trophy on a cow pasture.
Quique Setién, coach of FC Barcelona, dreams of winning the Champions League with Barca – and of cows.
“I’ve dreamed of running with the cows through Liencres (village near Santander, editor’s note) while holding up the Champions League trophy and showing it to them,” Setién revealed in an interview with Spanish TV3 on Wednesday.
Setién has been Barca coach since January
In January, the Spaniard, who lives in a cow village in Cantabria, joined the Catalans around superstar Lionel Messi with these words: “Yesterday I was walking past the cows in my village and today I’m training the best players in the world.
Setien’s contract with Barca runs until 2021, but can be extended by a year depending on the results. “I’ve told the players that I don’t have time to lose, that I want to win the Champions League and La Liga,” he said. “If it can be both, all the better.”
With regard to Barca’s fundamentally high standards and the one-and-a-half year contract, he seemed confident: “I hope to fulfil (the contract) and then extend it.”
Setién: “I won’t feel like a champion.”
Currently Setién is on a good path, at least in the league. Barcelona are at the top of the table, two points ahead of Real Madrid.
However, the season in Spain has been suspended due to the Corona pandemic. Setién would welcome a sporting decision in the championship battle. “What I’d like to do is play and become champions – that’s obvious. But the situation is as it is,” said the 61-year-old.
“I’m not going to feel like a champion,” Setién explained his feelings about a possible retirement due to the corona, stressing: “This is a difficult situation. And what worries me now is that we have to find a solution to the crisis as soon as possible. So that we can hug all the elderly people. The rest is superfluous, and I don’t attach too much importance to it.”
In the Champions League, the successor to Ernesto Valverde will have to be patient. The second leg of the last 16 against SSC Naples has been cancelled due to the pandemic. Speculation is that a final eight tournament will be played in August.