2024-03-13 13:28:13
The president of Barcelona, Joan Laporta, reaffirmed this Friday his desire that coach Xavi Hernández “continue until the end of the season” and promised not to dismiss him because “he does not deserve it.”
«I want Xavi to continue until the end of the season with this formula that we have adopted. It’s the best for this season. I will not dismiss Xavi because he does not deserve it. “He deserves that we trust him,” Laporta said in an interview with RAC1.
The head of FC Barcelona admitted that the Barça team will have to have “a point of luck” to rejoin LaLiga, in which they are ten points behind the leader, Real Madrid, and assessed that they have a “team to beat the Naples” in the round of 16 of the Champions League in a tie that will be “very important.”
«The template is to be better than where we are. We have had injuries to key players for our system such as Pedri, Ter Stegen, De Jong or Gavi. The team, which won the League with some authority and was destined to not be ten points behind the first at this point, has suffered. It was not what was planned and we are working to straighten the situation,” he explained.
Laporta stated that, if a coach other than Xavi were in the current situation, he would have dismissed him and would not have adopted this formula, but he believes that in the current situation it is the best for Barça and “it can work.” And, in this sense, he added: “Xavi is honest so, if it doesn’t work, he can tell us what he wants to tell us.”
The president of the Catalan club explained that “it was never considered dismissing Xavi” because “he had a contract” and they “always” wanted him as a coach.
Asked about the future coach of Barcelona, Laporta responded that he delegates this issue to the sporting director, Anderson de Souza ‘Deco’, but he did specify that “the possibilities are quite limited” to “a coach with a certain track record”, unless the club make “a more imaginative decision.”
However, Laporta explained that the Mexican Rafa Márquez, coach of the Barça reserve team, is not ruled out: “Rafa is training in-house, he knows the players who are coming up, and this is an asset that he has. The sports structure, when I say that it was prepared for emergencies, was this. Which is putting the second coach of the team.
On the other hand, the president of FC Barcelona acknowledged that Deco is working so that Joao Cancelo and Joao Félix, on loan to the Catalan club until the end of the season, continue in the team.