Ezequiel’s Barco career has been extremely underwhelming. Some will blame him, which, frankly, is an extremely ignorant stance that almost feels like blind anger without any critical thinking. People will criticize Carlos Bocanegra, but not because he handles signings like Barco terribly, but because they somehow feel that Barco, who was one of the brightest talents in South America at an extremely young age, was actually not good, and will get angry at him for his high transfer fee. So, here I am to explain what happened to Barquito and how Carlos Bocanegra killed the career of one of the most promising South American playmakers.
It makes sense to start Barco’s story at the beginning of Barco’s career. At 16, Barco made four appearances in Copa Sudamericana, including a start, and, at 17, he had 8 g/a in under 2,000 minutes for Independiente, as well as 6 g/a in under 1,000 minutes in Independiente’s Copa Sudamericana winning campaign. In 2017-18, he only played 452 minutes and got 3 g/a before making the move to MLS.
Now, this next part is the first example of many of Carlos Bocanegra making succeeding extremely different for Ezequiel Barco. According to Felipe Cardenas, “sources say that Martino had concerns regarding the front office’s MLS record signing of Ezequiel Barco for a $15 million fee, which he thought was too much for a teenager, and wanted Atlanta United to sign Yamil Asad to a permanent deal…” Clearly, Martino had problems with Barco’s fee, which may seem trivial. But, I think, more incriminating is that Tata wanted to sign Asad permanently. Asad was an extremely direct, true winger, more like his right-sided counterpart in 2017 Villalba and much like even their #10, Miguel Almiron, while Barco was more like a creative attacking midfielder playing on the left side. He found himself on the bench as Atlanta made their way through the playoffs, and even came off the bench late in the match in the MLS Cup Final. For whatever reason, be it tactical or what, Barco did not seem to fit with Martino, or be a player Tata wanted. Contrary to what random Twitter users whose favorite pastimes are being angry on the internet may think, a coach’s system plays a massive role in how a player plays, and, if said player doesn’t fit for the system, they’re likely to struggle. Barco struggled, of course, but he was an 18 year old kid coming to a new country with a coach who didn’t want him. You can’t entirely blame him. A literal teenager who is coming to an entirely new country with a different language and completely different culture is going to struggle.
After Martino and Almiron left, this could’ve been the time for Boca to hire a manager and add a DP that would work with Barco and not want nothing to do with him. Unfortunately, instead, he hired, as Jose Mourinho would put it, the “worst manager in Premier League history.” Of course, in a team where his manager was not super into the idea of going forward with the ball, the playmakers would struggle, and that’s exactly what we saw with Barco and another Bocanegra victim, Pity Martinez. Despite this, a 19 year old Barco was in the 84th percentile in goals, 50th in assists, 68th in expected assists, 94th in key passes, 97th in shot creating actions and 59th in goal creating actions. He also did well for the U20s at the U20 World Cup. He also missed 7 games that season with a knee injury.
Heading into 2020, things looked good, but Josef Martinez went down, Carlos Bocanegra sold everybody and added some new victims that also didn’t fit for the manager or were just not very good at football, and things… didn’t look great. The year just went poorly. Pity Martinez left so Barco basically had to do everything himself, a habit that develops over years of people not working for you, and he didn’t look great.
That offseason, Boca actually did a good thing (don’t worry, it won’t last) and signed Velez Sarsfield manager Gabriel Heinze. Heinze had Barco playing in a bit of a deeper role, and he did very well there (Josh Bagriansky does a good job of explaining it here: https://www.dirtysouthsoccer.com/2021/8/9/22602209/ezequiel-barco-is-not-atlanta-uniteds-problem-hes-a-huge-part-of-the-solution). He also went to the Olympics with the Argentine U23s that summer. Upon returning, the only manager who utilized him well at Atlanta had been fired by Carlos Bocanegra, and in came Valentino and later Pineda. In 2021, there was a good bit of letting them play and work off of one another, and Barco THRIVED here, getting 0.62 g/a per 90 afterwards. It can’t be understated that 2021 was the only season that Barco had in Atlanta with managers who knew how to use him, and it was reflected in his numbers.
Throughout his time at Atlanta, Barco has had to deal with being brought in for a manager that didn’t want him and didn’t play him in important games, a manager who genuinely had no idea how to manage him, having his next best attacker being Jon Gallagher and having the only manager who had any idea how to use him fired. Now, at River Plate, his minutes are inconsistent, he is largely complained about in the same sentence as Solomon Rondon, and is fourth on the team in g/a per 90 but it all came from pens. He’s been good when getting minutes centrally, but is not a guaranteed starter by any means. Barco went from genuinely one of the most promising players in South America to struggling to get consistent starts for River at 24. This is what happened to Barco, this is why he failed here. Not because of the average simplistic, stupid reason completely devoid of nuance that you find on Twitter. The blame falls on Carlos Bocanegra for signing a player not wanted by a manager and then consistently doing everything he could to make sure managers didn’t utilize him right.
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