Jonatan Giraldez confirms Barcelona exit, reportedly bound for Washington Spirit: Will his style fit in NWSL?

Barcelona supervisor Jonatan Giraldez confirmed Monday that he’ll depart the membership on the finish of the season for a suggestion exterior of Europe that he couldn’t flip down.

“I communicated to the membership just a few days in the past my intention to not renew my contract,” he stated throughout a press convention on Monday, per ESPN. “I needed the timing of the choice to permit the membership essentially the most time attainable to plan for the nice of the crew. Additionally, on a private degree, I needed to keep away from the main focus being on [my future] after we get to March, April-time after we are often competing for titles.”

The 32-year-old’s take care of Barcelona expires on the finish of the season, and he’ll depart after a profitable three yr spell with the membership. He received Liga F in his first two seasons in cost and Barcelona at present boast a 9 level lead atop the desk this season, and in addition lifted the UEFA Girls’s Champions League final season.

Giraldez additionally stated that he solely opted to depart due to a suggestion he acquired elsewhere that was superior to the one his present employer proposed. Giraldez, although, supplied few specifics on his subsequent vacation spot aside from the truth that it’s exterior of Europe.

“I can solely say it is exterior of Europe. I’d not wish to compete in opposition to Barca,” he stated. “Once I decide, I have a look at many elements. I’ve acquired a lot greater presents than the one I’ve now. I assess many various issues, not simply cash: the problem, the sporting mission and my household. It is a skilled and a household determination. It’s to do with the target of creating personally.”

A number of stories have linked Giraldez to the NWSL’s Washington Spirit, which has had a training emptiness since October, when the membership parted methods with Mark Parsons one yr into his deal after they missed the playoffs. The Spirit have supplied Giraldez quintuple his present wage at Barcelona, per Spanish outlet Relevo.

Spirit’s formidable rent

Barcelona famously play a possession-oriented type, a framework Giraldez has excelled in first as an assistant after which because the crew’s supervisor. Midfielders naturally function a focus of his crew, and the reigning Champions League winners boast among the world’s greatest. Aitana Bonmati, Keira Walsh, and Alexia Putellas have emerged as among the most technically gifted gamers within the sport, and in addition possess a tactical flexibility that has allowed them to shine in numerous midfield spots.

Giraldez’s Barcelona crew additionally will get essentially the most out of their attacking expertise, together with Spain’s Girls’s World Cup breakout star Salma Paralluelo and her membership and nation teammate Mariona Caldentey. That needs to be essentially the most thrilling information for the Spirit, since their roster contains the thrilling attacking trio of Trinity Rodman, Ashley Sanchez and Ashley Hatch.

If Giraldez does find yourself coming to the nation’s capital, he would simply be probably the most achieved incoming coaches within the NWSL. That repute appears to go well with Spirit proprietor Michele Kang simply effective throughout her pioneering push to lift the bar within the girls’s sport — she is within the midst of constructing a community of girls’s groups, most just lately buying the Girls’s Championship’s London Metropolis Lionesses and is nearing a deal to purchase Olympique Lyonnais, the file Champions League profitable aspect. It comes as no shock, then, that Kang is pushed sufficient to land Giraldez and can be prepared to spend to take action.

That is not the one cause her plan to rent the outgoing Barcelona supervisor is formidable. The NWSL is slowly transitioning away from a extra direct type of play, however has not been a vacation spot for technical sides like Giraldez’s Barcelona. His experiences within the U.S. would function a primary check for that specific type of play, however seems like a pure experiment for an NWSL crew to conduct throughout the girls’s sport’s speedy tactical transformation.

The tactical change forces one query: How shortly can Giraldez promote his tactical imaginative and prescient, particularly if he reveals up midseason? If he completes Barcelona’s season as anticipated, he wouldn’t unlock till Could — two months after the 2024 NWSL season begins. It is value asking, then, who is likely to be entrusted to carry issues down till he arrives, and if his transformation of the Spirit is a long-term mission relatively than a medium-term one.