Xavi resigns as Barcelona coach

Following Jurgen Klopp, who on Friday announced his separation from Liverpool at the end of the season, another top coach has decided to leave the grand club in the summer. True, Xavi announced his decision to resign as coach of Barcelona in order to “change the dynamics” at a time when, unlike the Liverpudlians, it was not going through a prosperous, but a very difficult period: the team suffered a number of painful failures, and after Saturday’s loss Villarreal actually fell out of the “golden race” in the Spanish Championship.

One of the main football events of the past weekend was the statement made by Barcelona head coach Xavi. After his team’s 3-5 home defeat to Villarreal on Saturday, he announced that he would be leaving his post in the summer. Explaining the reasons that led him to take such a step after a “human conversation” with Barcelona president Joan Laporta and other club leaders, Xavi used both the traditional reference to the pressure that hinders any coach of a football giant and negatively affects “mental health”, and the recognition , that in this way, like a real “culé”, that is, a fan of the Catalans, wants to “change the dynamics”, “liberate” the players.

His speech took place about a day after a similar move with the announcement of a summer separation from his club committed Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp. But the announcements of the resignation of German and Spanish specialists still do not seem absolutely related. Klopp spoke about leaving in the middle of what promises to be a very successful season, which made his departure a complete surprise. In the case of Xavi, the circumstances are a little more understandable and natural, or something.

The former Barcelona legend took over the coaching position in November 2021, taking over from Ronald Koeman. It was a rather specific period in the history of Barcelona. She was looking for a way out of a multi-layered crisis with all possible components – sports, administrative, image and financial. Barcelona, ​​from which leader Lionel Messi had already fled to PSG and which had already managed to oust former president Josep Bartomeu, was in need of restructuring, and its prospects, given all the difficulties that had arisen, including purely financial ones, looked shrouded in thick fog. In such a situation, the new management of the club wanted to take a risk, betting on the energy and love of the coach they invited, and not on his experience. The young Xavi (now 44 years old) had just the minimum: before leading the Catalans, he briefly led the Qatari Al-Sadd.

In this case, the experiment turned out to be rather successful. Having finished second in the championship with Barcelona in 2022, Xavi returned the gold the following season – his first full at the helm of the team. In the European Cups under him, however, she made misfires, but experts did not focus attention on them, noticing mainly positive aspects: the stylishness of Catalan football, again similar to the one she played when her coach was himself a football player, integration into the core of the group young players such as Gavi, Pedri, Alejandro Balde, and the recently established 16-year-old Lamin Yamal.

In the Spanish press, there were even comparisons between Xavi and the great Alex Ferguson, who coached Manchester United for almost three decades before his retirement.

He was predicted to have a similar happy career at Barcelona. However, it turned out to be much shorter.

Xavi was undermined by the current season, in which the Catalans finally reached the play-offs of the Champions League (they will face Napoli in the 1/8 finals), but suffered a series of painful setbacks on the domestic front. After the New Year, Barcelona was dealt with in the final of the Spanish Super Cup – 4:1 – by Real Madrid, then it flew out of the Spanish Cup after losing – 2:4 – to Athletic, and was now beaten by Villarreal, effectively dropping out of the ” golden race” of the national championship. The leading Real Madrid is ten points ahead of its most important opponent, the upstart Girona is eight points ahead. And the luster in the Catalan game is increasingly being lost amid a huge number of blunders. Leading Spanish football expert Guillem Balagué, in a column for the BBC, described today’s Barcelona extremely harshly: “The players look individually weaker than last season, and in the collective aspect, a clear, defined style has simply disappeared.”

At the moment, there is not a single specialist who clearly resembles Xavi’s future successor. Sport.es published a list of those who, according to sources, might be of interest to Joan Laporta. It features two people who provided a breakthrough for the Spanish clubs – Girona and Real Sociedad – Michel and Imanol Alguacil, and former Barcelona players Thiago Motta, Rafael Marquez and Giovanni van Bronckhorst with a modest, as once the failed “Catalan Ferguson”, background.

Alexey Dospehov