Ex-Barcelona player returns to club as 'football coordinator'
- Bojan Krkic is back on the staff at Barcelona
- La Masia graduate has a job working under Xavi
- Bojan famously a cult hero at Stoke City
Barcelona announced a new structure of its sporting operations on Wednesday, which included the return of La Masia graduate Bojan Krkic to the club in a behind-the-scenes role.
Changes have been underway at Barcelona all summer, with Deco officially starting work as sporting director following the departure of Mateu Alemany and Jordi Cruyff.
Bojan, who joined Barcelona aged eight and was a first-team debutant less than three weeks after his 17th birthday, is the new football coordinator.
He will work under first-team head coach Xavi and in conjunction with head of youth football Alesanco to monitor the progress of emerging talent in La Masia. A secondary part of his responsibility appears to be keeping tabs on young players out on loan.
"There is the incorporation of Bojan as coordinator of the football area. With Xavi we talk about monitoring players loaned to other clubs and it is something that we've failed a lot at," Deco said.
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"The coach doesn't have time, he has to be focused on the games. We have to give answers to the coach. [Bojan's] arrival is not just for this. He knows what La Masia is and being a player that everyone talks about. We know it is not easy. Bojan has experienced it all at the club. He can contribute a lot to this job. The idea is for him to help us with player monitoring."
Bojan found the net 41 times in 163 Barcelona appearances between 2007 and 2011, playing more often than Lionel Messi in La Liga in 2007/08 and matching him for league goals (10).
The Spaniard with a Serbian father went on to play for Roma, AC Milan and Ajax in successive seasons, before landing in Stoke City in 2014 and becoming a cult hero for the Potters.
Bojan had loans at Mainz and Alaves while at Stoke, while he also went on play for MLS side Montreal and finished his career as a teammate of Andres Iniesta at Vissel Kobe. Although retired since last year, he only recently turned 33 but can look back on a playing career that delivered two Champions League wins, as well as silverware in Netherlands and Canada.