Returning to Barcelona as the head coach was a long-time dream for Xavi, but the former Barca playmaker’s turbulent and at times farcical final few months in the job have been a nightmare for both him and the Spanish club.
Xavi leaves having guided Barcelona to two trophies in two and a half seasons in charge, including the 2022-23 La Liga title.
But as he goes, there is sadness over how he has been left dangling over the last week by club president Joan Laporta, and also fear at what such a bungled move to a successor, likely to be ex-Bayern Munich and Germany manager Hansi Flick, means for the team’s future.
Xavi’s playing career was historic — he played 869 games for Barcelona between 1998 and 2015, winning 25 trophies, including eight La Liga titles and four Champions Leagues.
Just as significant for many Barca fans was his meaning as a local Catalan kid who joined their La Masia academy at age 11 and became perhaps the greatest symbol of the club’s possession-based style of football.
He was not always popular with fans of other teams, and was prone to occasional disparaging comments about rivals, especially if they played for Real Madrid. He once famously dismissed Cristiano Ronaldo as a “dribbler” who was not nearly as good an all-round footballer as his Barca colleague Lionel Messi.
But such moments just made most fans and pundits in Barcelona love Xavi even more. He shared their pride in everything to do with the team, and would always defend the club with everything he could.
After captaining Barca to a second Champions League, La Liga and Copa del Rey treble in 2014-15, at age 35, Xavi realised he was no longer capable of helping on the pitch. He immediately began to prepare to return one day as coach, deciding to join Al-Sadd in Qatar to gain experience of management for himself and his chosen backroom staff.
It was always a matter of when he would be in the Camp Nou dugout, rather than if. Laporta at first resisted, but called him back in October 2021 to replace a floundering Ronald Koeman.
Laporta and Xavi embrace in November 2021 (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)
The returning club legend also functioned as a useful shield for criticism for Laporta and his board of directors. Everyone was still struggling to come to terms with talisman Messi’s departure to Paris Saint-Germain that summer, as well as the club’s huge financial problems.
GO DEEPER
Barca’s €130m hole in their accounts – and why a June 30 deadline is key
“Xavi is the most excited of everyone,” a source who knows him well told The Athletic soon after his return, preferring to speak anonymously as they did not have permission to comment. “This is a dream he has been working towards for a long time. He is convinced that everything will go well.”
It did go well, mostly, for the first 18 months. Last season’s La Liga title — the club’s first since 2018-19 — was emotionally celebrated. The positive spin was that a mix of Xavi’s Barca DNA and Laporta’s ‘levered’ signings such as Robert Lewandowski and Raphinha had sparked a return to greatness.
That has turned out to just be an illusion, though.
During the current campaign, exiled during extensive reconstruction work at Camp Nou to a temporary home across the city on the windswept Montjuic hill, Barcelona have slumped from disaster to disaster.
The disarray at different levels of the club has been evident at many points since last August: in a pair of 4-2 La Liga defeats to neighbours and surprise title challengers Girona, in three Clasico losses to Madrid, in a Copa del Rey quarter-finals exit at former coach Ernesto Valverde’s Athletic Bilbao and in their elimination at the same stage of the Champions League at home to ex-Barca player and coach Luis Enrique’s Paris Saint-Germain.
The most obvious problem for Xavi is that he never got Barca playing the way he said he would.
He took over talking of returning to the 4-3-3 of his playing days, with speed and pace on the wings. Circumstances saw that evolve into a more solid four-man midfield during last year’s title victory, and then often fielding four centre-backs in the XI this season.
Meanwhile, Xavi started to blame everyone else for the team’s problems.
He has never been a great loser — during his playing days, defeats would often be followed by moans about rivals’ defensive tactics, or letting the grass grow longer on their pitches to hamper Barca’s passing game.
For Xavi the coach, the easiest targets were referees and Real Madrid, so talking about La Liga being “adulterated” (supposedly by officials succumbing to pressure from Madrid’s in-house TV channel) was no surprise. And most Barca fans were on his side with this.
However, most obviously painful for Xavi has been a lack of support from inside the closer Barca family.
He saw first-hand, as a player, how Pep Guardiola was worn down by the club’s infamous ‘entorno’ — environment — during his four seasons in charge. Xavi’s speech when he announced he was stepping down, following the shambolic 5-3 home defeat against Villarreal in January (before a U-turn last month rendered pointless by Friday’s sacking with one game of the season to go), had echoes of Guardiola’s farewell in 2012.
GO DEEPER
Barcelona’s ‘entorno’ – the toxic mix not even Guardiola and Xavi could avoid
“The feeling of being Barca coach is not nice, it’s cruel,” Xavi said. “You often feel you are being disrespected, your work is not being valued. There is a terrible wear and tear on your mental health, your spirits.”
There was sympathy for this feeling, especially from those who knew how much the job meant to him. It was clear that he needed a break.
That decision to leave liberated him to make decisions which he felt were best for Barcelona’s long-term future. That included keeping expensive club signings such as Joao Felix and Vitor Roque on the bench, while promoting the best La Masia graduates, including Lamine Yamal and Pau Cubarsi.
Xavi gave Yamal his debut in April last year – aged 15 (Eric Alonso/Getty Images)
There was also a less positive settling of scores from Xavi, including calling out Ramon Besa, a respected journalist with Madrid-based newspaper El Pais, after overcoming Italy’s Napoli in the Champions League round of 16 in March. Besa had called Barca “the fool of Europe” after a 1-0 away defeat against Shakhtar Donetsk of Ukraine in the group stage.
“Who’s the fool now?” was Xavi’s response. It betrayed a lack of confidence in himself and the job he was doing, and just confirmed that it would have definitely been best for all involved to stick to the exit plan.
Then came defeat by PSG, 4-1 at home in the second leg after winning 3-2 in Paris, and, within days, in the second La Liga Clasico of the season. That, too, should have been taken as a reminder that Xavi, at least at this relatively early stage of his coaching career, is just not at the elite level of PSG’s Luis Enrique or Madrid’s Carlo Ancelotti.
There is no shame in that. A relatively elegant exit, then maybe a year off to recharge and reflect, could have been followed by a return to coaching in a different environment with less pressure and lower expectations. Some success elsewhere could even have paved the way for a return to Camp Nou in a few years’ time, maybe under a different president, or when the club’s finances are in a better state, and with Pedri, Gavi, Cubarsi and Yamal reaching their peaks.
The biggest problem for this plan was that Laporta and sporting director Deco could not decide on who to hire as the next coach.
The club’s difficult finances, and a lack of obvious targets in the market, left them stumped. So instead, Laporta began to lean on Xavi, in public and private, to get him to change his mind. There were still plenty of doubts in both the boardroom and dressing room, but after the ‘Sushi night’ summit at Laporta’s city-centre apartment in late April, president and coach tearfully announced they would be sticking together for next season.
GO DEEPER
Xavi’s Barcelona U-turn – the dramatic story behind his decision to stay
That plan lasted a laughably short amount of time.
Xavi decided (whether consciously or not) to be more honest about the club’s finances and squad strength before the away game against Almeria on May 16.
He was just saying what should be clear to everyone — The Athletic reported earlier this month that they need to raise more than €130million from somewhere by June 30 to be able to sign anyone in this summer’s transfer window. It could even be seen as a defence of the institution — being honest with the club socios (members), and trusting them to accept the situation. But Laporta felt betrayed and immediately decided that Xavi had to go.
Since then, Xavi has been dragged through an agonising and brutal process, with neither Laporta nor Deco helping to explain the situation, in either public or private.
This included Xavi arriving back from Almeria last Friday, being followed all the way by cameras, not knowing whether he might be immediately fired when he got to the training ground. Laporta was persuaded to hold fire, but seemingly only to allow the club time to go back and talk again to Flick, who they had considered but then rejected for the job just a few months ago.
Through the past week, and during repeated questioning at multiple press conferences, Xavi could only say that, as far as he knew, he was continuing in the job for next season. After last weekend’s 3-0 home win against Rayo Vallecano secured second spot in La Liga and a place in next January’s Supercopa de Espana mini-tournament, he was again blunt about the awkwardness of the situation.
Xavi’s final home match in charge was last Sunday (Manaure Quintero/AFP via Getty Images)
“It’s what happens at this club,” he said, when asked how he felt about all the talk that he was already fired. “It is often unpleasant and cruel, it can make you feel small, but you have to accept it here.”
That win over Rayo also brought chants of “Xavi, yes! Laporta, no!” from the crowd at Montjuic. For someone who still holds the club’s best interests at heart, this was difficult to have to sit through and listen to. “I’m not looking for that (chants against Laporta),” Xavi said that night. “I want unity, consensus. I didn’t like it.”
This seemed true. He was still hoping for unity and consensus, and still hoping to continue in the job. Twice, Xavi tried to set up another face-to-face conversation with the president, to discuss the speculation and the future. But instead Laporta kept stalling, as talks with Flick progressed. Meanwhile, pressure was being exerted indirectly on Xavi — and his staff — to forgo the money they would be owed if they were relieved of their duties with 12 months left on their contracts.
There has not been too much sympathy for Xavi, or Barca, at La Liga’s other clubs. Chants of “Xavi, stay!”, when heard at other stadiums, such as the Bernabeu as Madrid were celebrating their latest Spanish title, were clearly ironic.
It is unfortunate that a player so identified with Spain’s best moments in football history — from Euro 2008 through the 2010 World Cup to Euro 2012 — is now such a figure of fun for many throughout the country. But on Friday, Quique Sanchez Flores — Xavi’s opponent in what will be his final game in charge away to Sevilla on Sunday — did comment on “how badly Barcelona treats its legends”.
The overwhelming sensation is of sadness. Just being a playing legend is no guarantee you’ll be a top coach — as other midfielders from Xavi’s era, such as Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, have also discovered.
It probably made sense for Barca to hire a new coach this summer regardless. But the cruel way the whole situation has unfolded left Xavi isolated and exposed. It really is no way to treat one of the most important figures in the history of both FC Barcelona and Spanish football. Even those who have been critical of Xavi’s ability as a coach will not have wanted his time in the dugout to end like this.
It does fit, though, with the ever increasingly erratic and volatile decision-making at Barca during the current presidency. Other Champions League winners with the club, in Koeman and Messi, have also been embittered about how they were treated by Laporta (Sanchez Flores also referred to this).
Xavi’s hero status was part of why he was useful to the president, even when the team were not playing well, and the next coach — Flick or whoever else — will not have that accumulated such goodwill among Barca’s fans and pundits.
Over time, memories of Xavi’s long and glorious career with Barcelona on the pitch should take precedence over his rollercoaster time as their coach. Still, the painful crash of his exit is symptomatic of deep issues with how the club are being run under Laporta.
This is a sad day for Barca, and there is little sign of any brighter future at the moment.
GO DEEPER
Who should replace Xavi as Barcelona coach? Hansi Flick or Rafael Marquez?
(Top photo: Jonathan Moscrop/Getty Images)
