Barcelona’s Sergio Busquets has said that his side have to win the Copa Del Rey final. In a season where their only trophy so far has been in the World Club Cup it is a chance to save their season and to ensure Pep Guardiola’s final season and Barcelona career are not remembered as an entire flop.
Barca have failed in the defence of their La Liga and Champions League titles, finishing a distant second to Real Madrid in the league and losing to eventual winners Chelsea in the Champions League. Saturday sees Barca’s season come to a close with the Copa Del Rey final against Athletic Bilbao.
“We won our first final under Guardiola against Athletic, and he will leave with this exact same match, collecting many titles and installing a new philosophy”. Busquets shows that Barca are eager to ensure they get something out of a season that has been incredibly disappointing by their high standards.
Busquets and his Barcelona team mates are under no illusions that Guardiola’s tenure has been “one of the best periods in the history of the club.” And Busquets has described Guardiola as “a very special coach”.
He was also keen to stress that the change of coach is not going to affect their attitude. “We have a young team, with a lot of ambition” he told reporters, “the coach will leave and we must keep working, whether or not this coach is around.”
Busquets also spoke about his disappointment with the timing of the cup final, which falls 13 days after Barca’s league campaign came to an end against Real Betis.
“We would have preferred to play the match at an earlier date so that some of us could go on holiday, others could join their teams for Euro 2012 and others to prepare for their teams World Cup qualifiers.”