A friendly to ease a country with a barbaric fascist regime back into international football
Bitter away qualifier defeat to a team which had bought the ref, in which we get an inexplicably disallowed goal and our opponents get an inexplicably awarded goal or penalty
February friendly against Wales
Glorious, come from behind 1-1 win at a major finals
Friendly against Poland
Workmanlike away qualifier win over Lithuania
Friendly win at home over Oman
Play off defeat
Moral victory away qualifier draw to our main rivals for a play off spot
Why do Barcelona insist on appointing a load of chumps since Guardiola left?
Is it because Messi only wants a yes man who will do what he tells them to do rather than a manager with clout and respect who will actually control the team and wield the axe.
Vilanova - don’t think he had any proper managerial experience before taking the reigns
Martino - a journeyman manager who had not managed in Europe before
Enrique - pretty much a novice manager, had a terrible year with Roma and a fairly average season with Vigo before getting the gig
Valverde - a journeyman manager with a few Greek titles and a Spanish Cup, never managed a top team
Setien - a journeyman manager who has not won anything.
There have been plenty of big name managers available during that time - guys like Mourinho, Conte, Allegri, Ancelotti, Klopp, Benitez, Simeone and Steve Kean that they could have gone for but instead just appoint some underwhelming guy who the job seems too big for.
They have some sort of pompous belief that they don’t need to appoint a big name, a proven manager to achieve success. They got lucky with Pep (a lot of it is down to the incredible players they had at the time) and are trying to replicate that since to the detriment of the club.
It has been a gradual fall from grace ever since he left mainly due to the fact that their only real competition domestically is Madrid and capitulation to Roma and Liverpool is testament to their inadequacy in Europe. The slide will continue until they recognise this flaw
