Jonatan Giráldez will leave FC Barcelona at the end of this season. The coach from Vigo ends his contract on June 30 and has already communicated his decision not to renew to the board and his coaching staff. Everything points to the fact that he will head for the North American League, with a juicy financial proposal on the table.
Michel Kang, owner of the Washington Spirit, the team in which the American star Trinity Rodman plays, was in Barcelona in November. The American businesswoman, who was in the Montjuïc stadium box office during the women's classic, is also the majority shareholder of Olympique de Lyon since the spring.
Giráldez, 32 years old, will say goodbye after his third season at the head of the team. He arrived there in 2019 through Lluís Cortés and after three years as Balaguer's assistant, he took over the reins of the team. In his first two seasons he has won two Leagues and a Champions League and has achieved a more versatile Barça, able to adapt to more scenarios and with footballers capable of developing more roles within the team. Finding a replacement for him will not be easy. The market for coaches in women's football is not that extensive and the club's coffers do not allow for much effort. In addition, the coach who arrives must know the Barça style well, so the options are reduced.
Giráldez's farewell was leaked from the club to the press on Thursday, hours before the Christmas dinner with all the professional and staff sections, and took the players by surprise, who at least mostly did not know that the coach's intention was to go- know His departure is added to another more than noticeable loss such as that of Markel Zubizarreta, and leaves the club in a complicated situation, full of unknowns. Without one of the best sporting directors in Europe and with a precarious economic situation, Barça must find a replacement on the bench and ensure the continuity of key pieces of the dressing room whose contracts expire this summer.
Up to eight Blaugrana footballers end their ties with the club on June 30: Alexia Putellas, Mariona Caldentey, Lucy Bronze, Asisat Oshoala, Marta Torrejón, Sandra Paños, Gemma Font and Mapi León. The renewal of the latter is practically closed, but negotiations with others, such as Alexia Putellas, are becoming more complicated. Despite the fact that Barcelona's financial cuts will not affect the women's section, the club has no intention of increasing its investment, so there is no money to undertake the increases that deserve contracts like that of the two-time Ballon d'Or gold
The feeling from the inside is one of uncertainty. There are many doubts about what the club's project is and whether it will continue to bet on one of the teams that has achieved the most success in recent years.
