2023-06-08 18:59:06
Finished and celebrated the League, the first League after Messi and after knowing that the star will not return because he has chosen to go to Inter Miami, Xavi He restlessly awaits the development of the summer market after asking for understanding for the decision of the Argentine star. “You have to respect Leo, he wants to live calmer”, said the coach.
Barça goes to the market in the middle of the economic crisis – they have no money. Manacled by the salary fair play and with many needs to design the third revolution that the coach demands and needs to take a “further step” in the reconstruction of the squad.
Three clear objectives
“It would be good for us to reinforce the team. I’m sorry to be heavy, but I don’t want to deceive anyone. If we want to compete at a European level we have to reinforce ourselves well”, the technician has claimed in a chat on Twitch with Gerard Romero. “We are clear about the scenarios. Scenario one, scenario two, scenario three,” she added.
The order of priorities is obvious. First, according to the coach, “a midfielder of a high level, a very high level”, who is capable of filling the void left by Busquets, a creative inside – “we lack the inside game, the inside game”, Xavi said without citing to Gundogan, although it was not necessary, to rest Pedri “and maybe one more striker”.
16 signings in a year and a half
This third revolution is essential for Barça to level up. The first remodeling was in the winter market-2022, at a cost of 55 million euros to bring Ferran Torres, and take the team to second place.
The second revolution, but still unfinished, happened last summer when the club activated the necessary levers to invest 158 million in the signings of Raphinha, Koundé, Lewandowski and Pablo Tower. Up to 16 players in a year and a half.
“Neymar? A surprise, a surprise. In theory it is not in our planning. Look that I love him a lot as a friend. There are other priorities”
Xavi, coach of Barça
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With that he dominated in Spain (League and Super Cup support it), but not in Europe. Therefore, you need more. And Xavi demands. He demands “a pivot and an interior. The names are on the sports management table. We’ll see if these signings can be made because there’s the issue of fairplay, but we have three or four plans in case one fails.”
Neymar, whom PSG is desperately looking for a way out, is not among the targets. “Neymar? A surprise, a surprise. In theory he is not in our planning. Look how much I love him as a friend. There are other priorities”, sentenced Xavi.
The fixed ones: From Ter Stegen, origin, to Lewandowski, end
Xavi’s squad has been getting smaller over the months. In January, Memphis and Bellerín left, marginal players. Now Busquets, capital in his project, and Alba, secondary, have left. But there are players who are structural in his game idea. Ter Stegen, the Zamora of the League, and Lewandowski, the Pichichi of the championship, with 23 goals, and without taking a single penalty, are the origin and end of Xavi’s Barça.
Araujo is the defensive heart of the team, untouchable as it turns out due to his performance, charisma and leadership, like Christensen, an example of immediate impact on the team. The appearance of Balde, a blessed appearance for the club and coach, has solved the serious problem that Alba’s departure could have caused.
“Everything is closed. A natural full-back would be missing, but the priorities are different,” Xavi acknowledged, opening the door for Julián Araujo in the preseason, the Mexican right-back who made his debut in Tokyo in the friendly farewell to Iniesta.
In the center of the field, and with Busquets’ decision to leave, the stage opens for Frenkie de Jong to be, now, the ‘boss’ of the team, escorted by Gavi and Pedri, pending the canary to recover stability in his brittle muscles. Above, and around the indisputable figure of Lewandowski, Dembélé and Raphinha coexist.
In the market; what to do with Ansu? Is there a way out for Ferran?
There is no official list of players discarded by Xavi, as much as they know it without being told by him. The coach, aware that he still does not have all the necessary information to know the movements that he will be able to make this summer, pending LaLiga’s approval of the feasibility plan presented by the club, hides these ideas.
But they have been well defined for weeks, aware that the team needs to “reinforce itself very well” to be competitive in Europe. He has sufficed with the current squad, “a squad”, as he defined it at the close of the last summer market, to govern in Spain with the League and Super Cup.
But it hasn’t been enough in Europe, so it requires players to raise the level. Ferran Torres and Ansu Fati are the two pieces that are not included in his project, although this does not imply that they are going to leave the Camp Nou. “Ferran has to feel valued and respected by the people. With him and with everyone we will have to decide what we do”, said Xavi.
Ansu has finished the season with 10 goals, being the second most scored for the team along with Raphinha (10), both far behind Lewandowski (33). But the owner of Barça’s ’10’ has added seven in the 1,380 minutes that he has played in the League; Vinicius achieved 10 playing more than double the minute (2,833). But Xavi has not yet spoken with him to address his future.
Kessie, that has had little weight, maintains a market in Italy and Paul Tower, a youngster with whom Barça would like to have repeated the ‘Pedri case’, has been fleeting, so a loan awaits him. He invested five million in it, but has not had continuity with Xavi. Perhaps Quique Setién’s Villarreal, a Cantabrian like him, who knows Pablo Torre very well, who came from Racing Santander.
The objectives. Iñigo Martínez, “top pivot”, interior and striker
“We need a top pivot to be able to compete well. That is the priority.” Xavi could not have been more forceful in setting the order of priorities in the choice of transfers. First, Barça must find a player to occupy the chair and the immense gap that Busquets has left with his departure.
Zubimendi, with a clause of 60 million, was the chosen one. But Real Sociedad has already made it clear that they are not selling the player, staging this Sunday, coinciding with the retirement of Illarramendi, the changing of the guard in San Sebastián. Illarra picked up his number four shirt and handed it to Zubimendi, that 3 has worn until now. La Real said that her jewel, 24 years old, does not move from her house. Not for now.
The Argentinian guido rodriguez (Betis, 29 years old), whose contract ends in June 2024, and the Portuguese Ruben Neves (Wolverhampton, 26), whose agent is Jorge Mendes, are the candidates that are emerging, in addition to the Moroccan Sofyan Amrabat (Fiorentina, 26). Kimmich, from Bayern, would please Xavi, although it is a complicated operation.
The coach, and rightly so, asks for a consecrated player so that the absence of ‘Busi’ does not have a devastating effect on the structure of the team after confirming that Messi is going to Inter Miami. He had designed a Barça with Leo. And another without him.
Xavi is aware that next season will be very delicate – the level of demand is rising, especially in Europe – because the team will be in the soulless exile of Montjuïc, far from the heat and calm that the old Camp Nou provided this season, with an average of 83,000 viewers. A real madness! Xavi asks for expert players with immediate performance. No margin for error.
Iñigo Martinezwho has already said goodbye to Athletic, is 32 years old and would give him more defensive ferocity. Yannick Carrasco, with 29, would provide him with dynamism and speed on the left wing. Although Atlético is asking for at least 15 million euros for the Belgian winger, whose contract ends in 2024. Barça, after two revolutions in three markets, still does not have a right-back in its squad.
And he continues, furthermore, without a creative interior to accompany Pedri in the responsibility of managing the offensive game. Gundogan (32 years old), the City captain, was the man. Although the English club tries to keep him from leaving Manchester (his contract ends on June 30) to renew it for two more years.
Barça, as Xavi confessed, also has Vítor Roque, the Brazilian center forward of Atlético Paranaense, monitored. “There is control over him. And we have been pending, we have him under control. But the economic situation is what will decide,” the coach argued.
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