‘It Finished Me’: Setien On FC Barcelona’s Darkest European Night

“The main problem I had was that they had been winning everything for 14 years, and when you win everything and know that you win 90% of the matches with relative ease, I think you relax mentally and don’t prepare properly,” Setien said.

"But of course, when the decisive matches arrive, you’re not at 100% and you suffer. And then, at my competitive age, I was no longer able to maintain the level they had had in recent years."

Despite the defeat and ceding the La Liga title to Real Madrid, Setien believes that he did well “given the circumstances I was in”.

"It’s true we had an accident, which always happens in football, that ended my career and could have ended anyone’s. What was that result in Lisbon, against Bayern Munich? That was the final straw in the situation the club was going through, and I was the one who had to pay the price?," Setien asked, in a nod to the financial crisis of the time that the Blaugrana was also going through.

Be that as it may, he’d have signed anyway even “if I had known everything that was going to happen”.

“Because for you, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to coach players like the ones I coached that year, and at a club that was surely, at that time, the best in the world,” he concluded.

After leaving FC Barcelona, Setien went on a two-year hiatus. He managed Villarreal in 2022/2023, and is currently unemployed after spending last season at Beijing Guoan.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com