‘I got to know real football at Middlesborough, not Barcelona’ – Victor Valdes during torrid coaching spell | OneFootball

Former Barcelona icon Victor Valdes has dropped out of the footballing world after a six poor months at UA Horta, according to Relevo. They say that nobody has heard from him in six months, after Valdes got rid of Whatsapp.

That was after a promising start to his coaching career. Initially winning the league with youth side Moratalaz, Valdes later joined La Masia as a coach, but left after just three months, following disagreements about his coaching style. His latest spell at Horta did not go well.

Valdes was called out for his dreadful management of the dressing room seemingly looking as if he had lost his desire to coach. In six months, he went through ’50 players and 12 goalkeepers’, putting the club in financial difficulty with his recruitment.

There are also details of him shouting at players and staff, once reducing the kitman to tears after he tried to pack up training equipment too early on one occasion, making him leave the pitch.

Part of the reason he left Barcelona seems evident in the testimony given by Horta players.

“He told us that he had suffered so much from Barça’s possession football as a starter, with Pique and Puyol wide, that what he was looking for was a more direct and vertical game. He defined himself as a rocker and he wanted rock and roll.”

“It seemed that, despite being part of a golden period for Barca, he had not enjoyed it, as if he did not have good memories. He told us that he learned about real football in the Premier League, at Middlesbrough, not at Barca.”

While at Horta they described him as ‘weird, strange and peculiar’, Valdes was well liked in some of his previous jobs. Former Barcelona academy left-back Arnau Sola sung his praises though.

“That Victor Valdes told you what you were doing right or wrong gave you an incredible feeling of satisfaction.”

Sola went on to explain that Valdes was “special, very special, and, at the same time, loyal to his methodology.”

Certainly it seems like Valdes is at the very least a marmite figure. The former goalkeeper has never coached at the top level yet, but has been in coaching on and off for the past five years.