García Pimienta against Barça, a style duel after a farewell full of reproaches | Soccer | Sports

“Thanks to Laporta, I am here in Las Palmas,” said Javier García Pimienta at a press conference before hosting FC Barcelona this Thursday (9:30 p.m., Movistar La Liga). The Las Palmas coach has spent 29 of his 49 years of life at Barcelona, ​​he has lived more time in the arms of La Masia than away from them. For the first time, Pimi will have to face the father who never loved him, who saw him born within the walls of the quarry, grow up as a youth football coach for 19 years, and who in 2021 fired him cursedly. The Catalan had to pack his bags, his playing philosophy in the pure style of Barça’s DNA, and go elsewhere with the music. “His dismissal upset him and his departure was a shame, because you see Pimi and Barca’s style is non-negotiable. You go to Las Palmas and you see Barça B,” say sources close to the coach.

The Catalan was lucky away from Barcelona. In January 2022 he took on the challenge of joining the Gran Canaria team and he succeeded. He now achieves the unthinkable: consolidates Las Palmas in the First Division – with 25 points, they remain far from relegation. “I live a great story, I enjoy football and I make our game enjoyable,” Pimienta says. A style that exudes everything that comes from La Masia. “We will try to get the ball back from them. If they don’t have it, they suffer, and if we don’t have it, we suffer too. We have to play a perfect match,” said the Catalan. Those who know him affirm that Pimi “is not going to change anything to play against Barça. “He will come out for the match and if he dies, he will do it playing soccer.”

“It is all our years and we do not know how we see it, but we are brave and we are protagonists”, it was assumed by the Las Palmas technology company, predicted by its first party against FC Barcelona, ​​and it was abrupt and unexpected. two years. “He has already been renewed in words, but there is a fateful day when he says goodbye en masse – in different places of the Barça universe – to all the core that remained standing from Tito Vilanova”, say close sources of the coach. The club justified itself by arguing that it was for sporting, economic and change reasons. One of them was a supposed salary of one million euros, unaffordable for the club. According to García Pimienta’s entourage, this is “false information”, since his salary never reached half a million. The entourage of the former Blaugrana coach, who is focusing on a golf tournament in Mallorca in the presence of club president Joan Laporta. This is where the change of course which led to the collective dismissal took place. “Laporta and his board were with the entire Guardiolista core and came back with modified ideas,” specify the same sources. “Pimi paid the Titovilanoism. At Can Barça, you were either from one family or you were from the other. It’s a seal that we wear on our foreheads forever”, say sources close to the coach after the entourage of Pep and Tito distanced themselves following the illness of the latter, who died in 2014 following a a cancer. Sources present in the Barcelona organization chart, in 2021, confirm to El País that the reasons and modalities of García Pimienta’s departure were those reported by those around him.

“Las Palmas, courtesy of Girona, is the revelation team of the season,” Xavi told a press conference. Regarding García Pimienta, the one from Terrassa was full of praise: “He is a great coach, very similar to what we are looking for. With a very offensive game and we know each other very well, personally and football-wise because we were teammates at Barça B. » “A humble guy, very simple, courageous, who bets on young people, who has nothing to lose and with “Barça DNA running through his veins”, he describes from the entourage of the coach of the Canary Islands team. “It will be a very difficult start and a fight for possession of the ball,” concluded Xavi, referring to a very similar style of play between the two rivals.

While on the islands they smile thanks to the good work of the coach in the stronghold of Las Palmas, in Barcelona, ​​Xavi Hernández’s men cannot afford to fail. “Now there are enough words and we have to demonstrate our level on the pitch,” he said. Xavi.

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