Except football, another great hobby of the newly appointed Barcelona boss Quique Setien is to play chess, since his youthful days.
He didn't play chess much since his father taught him how to play, but until he met a group of good friend who all belong to a chess club named "Torres Blancas". After that he became a member of that club too and has been playing regularly in his free time.
When joined Atletico Madrid in 1985, a coach of the squad gave him a electronic chess machine as a gift, which led the new Barca boss played chess day and night 'like a child' when his teammate were all listening to music or watching movies to kill the times.
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He received a big surprise recently as the head coach of Real Betis, when he had the opportunity to play against Anatoli Karpov, a famous Russian chess master.
With his 2055 points in the ELO rankings, he could even play the Chess Olympiad runned by FIDE (International Chess Federation)
ronnie_luv
503
well in a game of chess, the Queen is the most powerful and the player should know how to use it and in a game of football, Messi is as powerful as queen lets see how Setien uses him... hope he doesn't make a BLUNDER😉
Huwilnpty
489
I like his mentality, wining at all cost. bring back our tiki taka
niycisy
324
According to a Barça reddit group I follow, he has a FIDE chess rating of 2055 which is around 50 points shy of Candidate Masters. Novices have rating of below 1200. He is no Magnus but looks definitely tactically competent. Man management skills also seem to be good in previous stints. But lack of results, was it due to absence of high class players or not. We will know soon enough.
hidayat161
310
and barca tactic is like playing chess
SINGAM23
10
Setien showing his middle fingers 😨 Just kidding guys 👇🏾...