No one disputes Xavi’s status as a Barcelona fan, player and captain of a team that reached the top of the world with the game and titles, protagonist in sanctuaries like Wembley. That footballer became a celebrity after surviving adversity and Barça’s own cainism. Xavi even ruled out a million-dollar transfer from Milan and overcame the comparison with Guardiola. He was not a center midfielder, but rather a midfielder from whom Barcelona’s game and that of Luis and Del Bosque’s team were articulated. He also had the personality and character to mediate conflicts as difficult as those that arose from time to time around Messi or in relations with the Madrid internationals in Mourinho’s time. Míchel himself, the Girona coach, stated yesterday in Vigo: “Xavi is Barça.”
So no one was surprised that he became the Barça coach, replacing the dismissed Koeman, no matter how many misgivings Laporta had. No candidate knew the club like Xavi. Perhaps the doubts were about his aptitude as a coach after a stay in Qatar. The heterogeneity of the squad or the critical economic situation of an entity with a tendency to improvise and having to negotiate every chip with the League did not help either. The circumstances were complicated for any coach and Barcelona fans were grateful for Xavi’s bravery and ambition. The difficulty was precisely in putting together a competitive team after qualifying for the Champions League. The challenge was sporting and not social or institutional because he was precisely supposed to be immune to the environment and the self-destructive capacity of Barça.
It is not understood, therefore, that he holds internal and external criticism, especially journalism, responsible for his announced departure on June 30, a year before his renewed contract ends in 2023. The resignation is understandable from the point of view from a personal and human point of view if the situation had become unsustainable since the defeats against Madrid, Girona and in two inconsequential matches for the purposes of Champions League qualification. Xavi surely aspires to be treated differently, and if you will, more respectfully, although his interventions have contributed to the spiral of tension that he referred to on Saturday in Montjuïc. And he may even manage to put an end to the martyrdom that only Xavi – and his friends – has warned, denounced and suffered as Barça coach.
It will not be easy because, unlike his perception, the debate is about football and, as such, his decision is debatable no matter how liberating it may be for Xavi. However, it does not seem like the best solution for Barcelona. The coach surely intends one last coup after many failed attempts to provoke a reaction from some footballers who in many cases do not seem too involved or concerned about Barcelona’s situation. It will be necessary to see how they now face five months with a coach who they know will not continue next season, when the team is expected to return to the new Camp Nou.
The intention would be for the goodbye to function as a shock, so that it would have nothing to do with the resignations also announced by Klopp or Giráldez, not to mention those of Luis Enrique or Valero Rivera. Xavi’s case is so particular and unconventional that Laporta stated that he accepted the formula because the person who proposed it is a Barcelona legend who acts with dignity and loves Barça.
The board is buying time to find a replacement in the hope that it will not have to intervene prematurely if Xavi’s plan fails and qualification for the next edition of the Champions League is in jeopardy. There is not much precedent for a coach being sacked after announcing his departure regardless of his team’s fortunes in the League and the European Cup.
The score will decide Xavi’s fate in a season in which the aspiration was to play better football after winning the last League. The coach is not the only one to blame for the team’s situation, but he has also greatly helped the club’s improvised sports policy, now directed by Deco. Xavi’s figure has progressively weakened in the club, all the more reason to suspect that his is a farewell to the letter, decided a long time ago, since he suspected that the board would have difficulty keeping him in office after June 30. .
The news was not so much that Xavi will not continue from June, but rather the moment in which it became known and that it was the coach himself who immolated himself in the medium term and not on the same day, hugging the Barça flag. The coach Xavi, a victim and overwhelmed by the situation, has nothing to do with the player Xavi, who left all the Camp Nou critics speechless. Montjuïc is definitively becoming the mountain of ordeal for Barcelona.
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