2024-01-28 06:39:58
“It’s a brutal job. It wears you out. In Barcelona you always feel like you’re undervalued, that you’re treated unfairly. That’s how this club works,” he stated Xavi When he announced yesterday (Saturday) his decision to resign as Barcelona coach at the end of the season. It is doubtful that there has ever been a harsher and more direct criticism of the Blaugrana – of the management, the media and the fans. No one dared to say this so simply before and the words actually came out of the mouth of a person who expected that the reality would be 180 degrees different.
Because it is not difficult to recall the state of affairs in which Barca found itself in October 2021, when Xavi was solemnly introduced. It was a little over two years ago and the hope was that it was a long-term appointment. Xavi has been Barcelona’s designated coach since he hung up his boots and actually even before that. Illustrations on the subject have been circulating in Catalonia for a long time – Johan Cruyff passes the instructions to Pep Guardiola, and Guardiola passes the instructions to Xavi. The legendary past connection was pre-defined as an integral part of the dynasty.
All the cards were in his hands and he was the one who chose the timing for the return, while spending time in Qatar – as a player and then as a novice coach. In January 2020, in preparation for the dismissal of Ernesto Valverde, the sporting director at the time, Eric Abidal, and the CEO at the time, Oscar Grau, went to Doha in order to convince Xavi to take the position, and they refused. Immediately after, Abidal claimed that there was no offer Never, accused Xavi of lying and thus completely burned the chances of appointing him in the era of the previous management. The fact is that Xavi did not agree to the offer even in August 2020, after the departure of Kika Stein. For the third time, he no longer wanted to miss the chance When the current management, led by president Juan Laporte, decided to oust Ronald Koeman in October 2021.
For the third time, Xavi did not want to miss the opportunity (Reuters)
Xavi understood very well that objectively it was still early to realize the dream and that the experience he gained on the Al-Sad bench was little and hardly relevant. However, one key consideration made him assume that the timing was right. Barcelona was in a very deep crisis, with a miserable and crumbling staff, in a catastrophic financial situation, under draconian restrictions, and in such a situation there is no choice but to rebuild everything for the long term. The expectations were very low – the fact is that Barcelona was then ranked next to Espanyol in the table, and qualifying for the Champions League was a big question mark. The centers of power in the dressing room were dismantled after the departure of Leo Messi and there is a reasonable basis to assume that Xavi really did not want to be responsible for ending the path of the flea at Camp Nou. The frustrated fans begged for a glimmer of hope – and Xavi was that hope.
He arrived with tremendous power beforehand and did not hesitate to publicly assign tasks to Laporta at his first press conference. “Extending Ousmane Dembele’s contract should be a high priority,” said the new coach. “I understand,” replied the president. And it was the most symbolic. This defined the balance of power within the club. Xavi knew he had unlimited credit. All problems will be automatically linked to the current management and especially to the previous management. All achievements will be automatically credited to him. Even if he was not ripe for the task, he was unable to give up such conditions.
At first he had unlimited credit. Xavi shown in Barcelona (Reuters)
Indeed, the first months in office were accompanied by something that could be defined as a kind of cult of personality. The newspapers were filled with reports of the great changes that Xavi introduced – in the agenda, in training, in surgeries, even in the menu. The players praised the new and special atmosphere and the energies that were not there before. The commentators endeavored to praise every positive aspect they managed to find or invent. Xavi enjoys talking a lot about himself with the media, and even if it sometimes felt like this show was exaggerated, it only strengthened the general motto – Xavi was the leader who would gradually march Barca into a better future, just as everyone hoped back when he was a player.
What went wrong since Xavi’s decision to leave his dream job with a rather broken heart? Mainly the gradualism. Success came much earlier than expected, with a championship win last season, that is, in Xavi’s first full season – and another smooth and relaxed win, without heart palpitations in the final rounds, and with a 10-point advantage over Real Madrid in the final table. This was made possible, among other things, because the staff was not built slowly according to the economic constraints either. A way was found to inject very considerable resources into the transfer market, and along the way free agents were also collected at handsome wages. This is how Robert Lewandowski, Rafinha, Fran Torres, Jules Conde and Andreas Christensen made their way to Barcelona, and last summer Ilkay Gundogan, Joao Cancelo and Joao Felix were also added. It was no longer an inferior faculty.
It was no longer an inferior faculty. Felix and Cancelo with Laporte (Barcelona’s Twitter)
So in September, Xavi extended the contract until 2025 with a significant salary upgrade, instead of the initial document that was supposed to expire in 2024. He flashed smiles and continued to talk about long-term plans, and so did his bosses. the new sports director, deco, stated: “We are happy that he is our coach. He did not earn the new contract because of his name, but because of his excellent work. We want him to stay here for many years, and he wants that too.” Along the way, the ambition to win the Champions League again was mentioned as a stated goal. And that could have sounded promising, but here exactly lay the problem.
Because with all due respect for winning the championship, Xavi is still a young and inexperienced coach. It’s still too early to assess his true potential, and it’s still very early to regard him as an all-star. Any beginning coach may fall into crises, and Xavi’s challenges this season were enormous. He had to find a solution to the orphaned position of Sergio Busquets following the departure of a very critical player who was also a kind of assistant coach on the pitch. He lost Dembele to Paris Saint-Germain against his will. He had to learn to deal with the egos of big stars, as the influence of the 35-year-old Lewandowski within the club increased, and as his fitness actually decreased. Then came the injuries of two most essential players – Marc-Andre ter Stegen, who scored the goal in the league last season, and Gabi, who was the heart, the engine and the most outstanding apprentice that Xavi nurtured.
Gabi stood out in his absence (Reuters)
And when he faced all of this, Xavi suddenly discovered that his credit had completely run out – both in the management, in the media, and among most of the fans. The expectations raised to an illogical level after winning the championship denied him, quite paradoxically, the right to learn through trial and error. They denied him the right to make bad decisions and make mistakes. If Barcelona miraculously conceded just 4 home goals in the league for the whole of last season, that became the new benchmark, and any weak defensive display was seen as a catastrophe.
Although it was very logical that the crisis would come with one intensity or another, Xavi was accused of the team not improving enough compared to last season. The style that brought the results last year, was suddenly not traditional enough and did not meet the pure requirements. Every error was examined with a magnifying glass, every problem was the subject of a title. The journalists, who enjoyed inventing reasons to praise the coach, changed their approach by 180 degrees and now enjoyed inventing reasons to bash him. Routine and minor disagreements with players were marketed as a lack of authority.
The fans, who saw him as a messiah, suddenly discovered that he was not perfect – and that was enough to give up on him here and now. Suddenly he was no longer the coach on whom the new Barcelona would be built. He was just some schmuck who got the role thanks to his achievements as an actor, and is unable to maintain the momentum – even if this momentum was largely created thanks to him. The absurdity here is absolutely amazing. Before the championship, Xavi had an industrial quiet, but the title made him disappear, and the background noise only got louder with each passing week.
has no longer become a long-term solution. Xavi (Reuters)
From the hero of the Catalan nation, he became a scapegoat in a very short time – and this sharp fall in his status he simply could not bear. Xavi’s breaking point turned out to be quite low. He hated to see how the full backup disappeared, and was amazed to stand exposed in front of a bloodthirsty media and uncomprehending and impatient fans. “It’s hard in terms of mental health. I’m a positive guy, but the energy runs out, and at some point you discover there’s no reason to stay,” he said yesterday – only four months after he was convinced he would stay for many more years. The mental collapse was very quick, and in quite a few games this season we saw a similar mental collapse on the part of quite a few Barca players on the pitch.
In the ideal situation, the coach and his apprentices were supposed to get stronger together, tweet about the criticism and devote all efforts to find the right formula. In reality, Xavi was not ready for the challenge, and the players did not help him. When the attitude towards him changed, he lost his passion for the job. It was no longer a dream, but a nightmare to escape from – and the decision was made, according to him, not yesterday, but earlier, probably after the crushing loss to Real Madrid in the Super Cup final. After that, came the fiasco against Athletic Bilbao in the Copa del Rey quarter-finals and the 5-0 that Barca suffered against Villarreal made Xavi reveal his intentions already.
was not ripe for the challenge. Xavi (Reuters)
He did not plan to make a statement yesterday. The players were not informed in advance, and Xavi was late to the press conference to tell Laporte about his resignation before everyone heard about it. On the other hand, the president must have been surprised when the symbol of Barca defined the club as a cruel place where coaches are not valued and treated fairly – and this is a statement that may keep certain worthy candidates away from the Blaugrana. Xavi claimed that he was doing everything for the club, but he really didn’t get over the bitterness – nor did he want to. He feels a jarring insult, and wants the world to know about it.
Now, the championship will forever remain on his resume, but we will never know Xavi’s true potential as a coach. Would he have been able to find the solutions if he had received credit in October 2023 as in October 2021? It’s a mystery, and from here he has nowhere to go in the coaching field, but only down. Not at all sure he would want that. It is possible that Xavi’s career as a coach will end in May, and he is only 44 years old. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe he will find happiness and satisfaction in other pursuits.
Humiliation: Barca is defeated at home against Villarreal 5:3
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