The former
Barcelona manager used to face the cameras but now, 17 months after his dismissal, has a photographic exhibition
Football looks different from where Ernesto Valverde is. “The idea was to change the focus,” he says, which he always has. This week a photographic exhibition opened at the Ernest Lluch Kulturetxea in San Sebastián. Made up of black and white images in 1m x 1.50m, on linoleum and bolted to the wall to give an industrial, uncomfortable feel befitting the world it captures, the collection offers a portrait of the game from the other side through the lens of the former Barcelona manager.
Valverde didn’t always plan to be a manager. Having studied at the Institut d’Estudis Fotogràfics de Catalunya while a player, he prepared for a photographer’s career but
Football has a way of drawing you in, expressed in his pictures. Twenty uninterrupted seasons he spent coaching, taking Espanyol to the Uefa Cup final, Athletic Bilbao to their first trophy in 31 years and Barcelona to the double, until the
Catalan club sacked him in January 2020, top of a league they haven’t won since.