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Barcelona coach Quique Setien joked he’s spending his time in lockdown dreaming of parading the Champions League trophy in front of the cows in his home village.
Setien, 61, oversaw his first-ever Champions League game in February when Barca were held to a 1-1 draw by Napoli in Italy in the first leg of their last-16 tie. The second leg, scheduled for Camp Nou in March, has not yet been played due to the coronavirus-enforced shutdown of football across Europe.
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“I have told the players many times that I am in a rush [to win trophies],” said Setien, who is the oldest manager in La Liga, in an interview with TV3.
“I don’t have a lot of time to lose and I would like to win the Champions League or La Liga. If I could win them both, even better. Of course I have dreamed about that — and about showing off the Champions League trophy to the cows back in Liencres [the village where he lives].”
Setien, who replaced Ernesto Valverde as Barca boss in January, was referencing a comment he made at his presentation when he said he was struggling to comprehend being handed the job after spending the previous day walking among the cows in the north of Spain.
However, the Barca coach is in no rush for football to return amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Last week, La Liga chief Javier Tebas revealed three possible dates for domestic football to resume in Spain behind closed doors — the earliest being the end of May — with European football likely to resume after. But given the uncertainty around when normality will be able to resume, all dates are tentative.
“It’s incidental whether or not La Liga is able to finish,” Setien added. “We are in a really difficult situation and what really worries me is finding the solutions to the crisis as soon as possible. Everything else is superfluous, I am not giving it much importance.”
Barca sit two points clear at the top of La Liga, but Setien says he would not feel like a champion if the season was cancelled and the title awarded to the Blaugrana.
“What I would like is to win the league by playing the remaining games,” he said. “I don’t know if right now [Barca’s lead] would be enough to award the title. I am not going to feel like a champion, even though we have two more points than when I arrived on Real Madrid.
“But I am indifferent to all that at the moment. If we have to end the season without playing, end it, but if we play on, brilliant, because it will allow us to try and maintain the advantage we have at the top now.”