The situation could not last any longer: disavowed by the fans and internally, Valverde, already in the hot seat in the autumn, paid dearly for Barça's defeat in the semi-final of the Spanish Super Cup against Atletico Madrid (3-2) on Thursday in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), his last game on the Catalan bench.

The club and the technician "have reached an agreement to end the contract between them," Barça said on Monday evening, adding in a separate statement that they "have reached an agreement" with Quique Setien "until 30 June 2022".

The Blaugrana directors, meeting all afternoon on Monday at the Camp Nou to decide the future of Valverde, decided to hand over the keys to the team to the former Atletico Madrid midfielder (three appearances for Spain in 1985-1986), who coached Las Palmas and Betis Sevilla among others.

He will sign his contract on Tuesday and will be presented to the press at 13.30 GMT at the Camp Nou. He will be on the bench on Sunday at the Camp Nou for the reception of Granada, his first game at Barça.

• Valverde, "Ant" too discreet -

With Setien, will Barça finally wake up from that nightmarish week? Having been eliminated from the Super Cup and deprived of their star striker Luis Suarez for four months (with surgery on his right knee), the Blaugrana club now face a change of coach after the disillusionment of Valverde.

What went wrong between the 'Txingurri' (ant, in Basque) and Barça, for the Catalan club to decide to sack a coach at the height of the season for the first time since January 2003 and the dismissal of Louis Van Gaal?

"Its philosophy of play and the way it works are similar to those of Barça," Barça president Josep Maria Bartomeu commented on Valverde during his 2017 presentation.

There are many reasons for this divorce. Firstly, Valverde paid for the two major disappointments in the Champions League, the remontas against Roma in the quarter-finals in 2018, and Liverpool in the semi-finals in 2019.

Secondly, his "pragmatic" style of play, far from the "tiki-taka" of the glorious Guardiola years, has not convinced, and his lack of results on the European stage (despite two La Liga wins in 2018 and 2019) has left its mark alongside the nine titles out of a possible 13 gleaned in three seasons by his predecessor Luis Enrique.

"The little bridges, feints and legwork are the Chantilly of football. It's not an end in itself, just a means to achieve what is for me the real pleasure of the game: victory," Valverde explained in an interview with So Foot magazine in 2013.

• "A thread connects Guardiola to Setien" -

Despite the good results achieved this season (La Liga leaders ex-aequo with Real Madrid), a change had to take place to restore Barça's 'DNA' as quickly as possible.

It will be the task of Quique Setien, a disciple of Louis van Gaal and a technician renowned in Spain for his sense of the beautiful game, who has notably beaten Argentinian Mauricio Pocchetino for the job, declined by legend Xavi.

"There's a thread that links Guardiola to Setien," Marc Bartra, a defender who played for Barça and Betis, told El Pais newspaper in September 2018. "In this Bétis (of Setien), I found the training I was following with Guardiola and Luis Enrique," he added.

Despite this mutual love, "Quique" Setien, the last coach to win at Camp Nou (4-3 on 11 November 2018 with Betis), will not escape the need for immediate results, despite the absence in attack of Suarez until mid-May (meniscus operation on the right knee) and Ousmane Dembélé until the end of February (right thigh).

That will begin on 25 February, when Setien will be in the thick of things with a decisive first-leg Round of 16 tie against Napoli in his first Champions League match after Valverde's European disappointments and, already, a hotly contested second leg clásico against Real Madrid on 1 March.