“It’s not normal to take over at a team that’s top,” Quique Setién said after the call that took him from a stroll among the cows in Liencres, Cantabria, to a job among the sacred cows at the Camp Nou. “When you’re out of work, waiting for an opportunity, you imagine a team near the bottom, in trouble,” said Barcelona’s new manager. Instead on Sunday night he will occupy his place in the dugout at a place where they have not seen their team lose for 38 games, going back more than a year – not since the last time he was there.
Ernesto Valverde lost one home game as Barcelona manager: to Setién’s Real Betis, 4-3 in November 2018. As a player Setién beat Barcelona too. In Santander some Racing fans still cling to the old, fading T-shirt that celebrated their 5-0 victory over the Dream Team in February 1995 like some religious relic. On the front is a green hand, a finger for every goal they put past Carlos Busquets, Sergio’s father, the scorer’s name at each of its tips: Esteban Torre, Jesús Merino, Dmitri Radchenko, twice, and Quique Setién.
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