Like Frank de Boer and Frank Rijkaard, Koeman is the latest in a line of managers to stumble outside the Ajax and Barcelona models in which they were schooled
Long before he was sacked, a criticism of Ronald Koeman at Everton was that he seemed to regard the club as a stepping stone. “He called us Everton, he never called us ‘us’,” as the former Everton captain Kevin Ratcliffe put it on Monday. Koeman’s ultimate ambition, as he has made clear since he took his first steps in management with Vitesse in 2000, is to manage Barcelona.
That seems ridiculous as he slinks away from Goodison Park after an unprecedented summer spree with Everton in the relegation zone. Perhaps now there have been too many failures for him ever to be taken seriously as a candidate at the Camp Nou. But he was once a contender and may be again: he has the right heritage – which may be part of the problem.
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