Xavi is happy because his Barça is being hinted at

2023-09-21 10:18:09

There are two games. But they are the two best games of his Barça. There are two games and two identical wins (5-0 against Betis; 5-0 against Antwerp), but what really reconciles Xavi It is the football that his team projected. The football of the midfielders, not the reinforced concrete that was exhibited last year, accustomed to the victorious but suffering 1-0 routine.

There are two games, two wins and the feeling, admitted by the coach himself, that he has found the right path. It is the same tactical drawing, maintains Xavi, but it is not the same because Barça has been filled with midfielders (De Jong, Gündogan, Gavi) with an offensive air, united with free souls (John Felix) who come to the engine room to connect with the ball, coinciding with lying laterals, like João Cancelowho are everything (interior, midfielder, false winger…), except he is a pure defender.

Give continuity

“We are in the best moment since I have been coach. These are the two best games,” Xavi proudly proclaimed, aware that the long process (in November it will be two years since his arrival) is beginning to leave him on the right path. And it is not only limited to the ‘Joãos’ Barça but there is much more, although, as Cruyff would say, “one pigeon does not make a summer”, which is why the coach demands to give continuity and stability to that exciting line. Suddenly, the team understands, with the inclusion of three new pieces, as happened in the Champions League, something that had tortured them tactically.

“Gündogan is a gift from heaven”

Xavi

Barça coach

Con Gündogan (“it’s a gift fallen from heaven”, proclaimed Xavi), John Felix (“I have told him that the simpler he plays, the more goals he will score,” he revealed) and with I cancel (“They come from a coach who wants to play the way we want to play, which is Guardiola,” he assured), Barça offers signs of evolution in its football. J.

Taught players

Players, like Gündogan and Cancelo, who have passed through Pep’s hands before. “There’s no need to tell Gündogan anything, how he plays football, how he understands when he has to jump under the pressure of the centre-back, when he has to play easy. It’s wonderful to see Gündogan play. Also Cancelo,” confessed the Barça coach.

Players, all of whom are already more than taught. Players, along with João Félix, who have had an immediate impact, even causing them to alter the face of the team.

“I have the feeling that we are playing much better football,” stressed Xavi, praising Barça’s ability to now find “what we were missing.” And what was he missing? “We lacked an inside game, to have more patience, to play inside and then if they close down, know how to play outside,” added the coach.

“I have the feeling that we are playing much better football,” admits Xavi

All that he missed so much in recent months, although now he is finding it. At least, in these two games, where he has also sealed Ter Stegen’s goal to zero. “The team’s level rises when Gündogan plays,” said Xavi. “Cancelo understands it very well and Koundé himself filters interior passes for goals. Even Andreas himself,” he noted in reference to Christensen, praising the chemistry that exists in that pair of centre-backs.

The connection with Lewandowski

“By putting a midfielder more dependent on the rival and a full-back who goes inside, it also helps us.” Not only that. This movement of pieces also includes Lewandowski, who before, not receiving balls, desperately abandoned his position, leaving a more than evident imbalance. “Now, Robert is more positional, he has more patience, the interiors must also have it. João Félix is ​​understanding it well,” said Xavi.

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The Polish striker does not need to move as much because he knows that the ball will come to him. And because he also knows that he has more partners and, above all, closer: João Félix, Gündogan, Gavi, Canceloeven, Raphinha, Lamine Yamal, the youngest debutant in the Champions League in Barça’s history, or Ferran Torres, the winger who moves on the right, or Bucket, a deep winger who lives more in the opponent’s area than in his own.

It started dry Lewandowski, with zero goals in 180 minutes. And now he is swimming in abundance, scoring four goals in the last four games. “We are on the right path, but we must continue,” said a cautious Xavi.