Being manager of Barcelona is “cruel and unpleasant”, said Xavi Hernández, but ultimately it is all he ever wanted, all he has. He’s also all they have. And so on Wednesday evening, three days after any lingering hopes of winning the competition had been extinguished, eight days after being eliminated from Europe again, 88 after announcing he was leaving and calling it a “liberation,” he decided that he would continue after that. all. Ultimately, he just couldn’t let it go, and neither could she.
“I have no problem changing my mind,” Xavi said on Thursday. By the time he said he was leaving on January 27, Barcelona had suffered five home defeats for the first time in six decades, a defeat he described as a portrait of their season: self-inflicted and absurd, a complete collapse. He had previously linked his continuity to trophies, the first law of coaching; After being defeated 5–3 by Villarreal, they were 10 points off the top. They had also lost to Real Madrid in the Super Cup final and to Athletic in the Copa del Rey quarter-finals, conceding four each. Moreover, it went deeper than defeats.
He told friends that being coach of Barcelona was not life, that there was no point in continuing. He went, but not yet. He would hold the job until the end of the season and then walk away. Joan Laporta said publicly that it was a formula he only accepted because it is Xavi and Xavi is a legend. That’s not to say the president might not end it prematurely, and there have been times when that option was considered, even close. The decision was irreversible, Xavi said. Even if they won the Champions League, he would go.
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They didn’t win the Champions League; no one ever really thought they would. Impressively in Paris, Barcelona were defeated by PSG in the second leg. Five days later they lost the classic, putting them 11 points behind Madrid. Seven goals in two games had ended the season definitively.
And yet, on Wednesday, Xavi met the sporting director, Deco, at the club’s Sant Joan Despi training ground, where they had a meeting and then went to Laporta’s house. Xavi arrived around 7:30 PM and tried, but failed, to reverse his car into a tight parking space just outside. Waiting for him were Laporta, vice-president Rafa Yuste and Alejandro Echevarría, who has no position at the club but is Laporta’s closest confidant. About an hour later other directors arrived. At nine o’clock they ordered Japanese takeaway. Xavi stayed.
“After the match against Real Madrid I spoke to Xavi and it was always clear to me that I wanted him to continue,” said Laporta. “Stability is very important for success.”
It was a shock, but that’s not it. It’s a decision that leaves lingering doubts, the suspicion that things haven’t gone according to plan – that there is no plan – and that there are parts of it that don’t quite make sense, but it’s not really a surprise, in spite of everything . It’s coming. In the end, breaking up was too hard. Being together wasn’t so bad.
Santi Cazorla tells the story of how Xavi apologized for leaving him alone at Al Sadd when he returned to Barcelona. “He said, ‘Santi, it’s my dream, something very personal that I want to do.’” It was everything he wanted to do, an inevitability that he would return, even if it didn’t happen exactly the way, or at the time that it happened. , he expected.
Home, however, was not as he had hoped. He arrived in the middle of a crisis, took Barcelona to the Super Cup, beat Madrid 4-1 in the final and won the league, a real achievement, but it was not enough. He was a puritan, an ideologue, the defender of the football faith, but the way they played didn’t look very Xavian. In Europe, Barcelona suffered four eliminations in two seasons. Then it all fell apart this season. It was mostly sad. There was also something curious: a Barcelona coach is supposed to know football and know the club; he seemed especially surprised by the latter.
“[The job] it exhausts you terribly, in terms of health, mental health, your mood, your emotional state,” he said. “I’m a positive guy, but the energy goes down, down, down, to the point where you say, ‘It doesn’t make sense.’”
He felt that he had done a good job and that this was not recognized, that there was no appreciation for his work. He saw the limitations imposed by a financial crisis, and did not see the footballers he wanted to turn up. He spent time convincing players who the club knew deep down would never come. He saw how those he thought were – should – not defending him, both within Barcelona and beyond. When they beat Napoli last month, he pointedly asked: “What are we going to do now with ‘Europe’s buffoon’?” The reference came from an article by one of Catalonia’s top journalists, who Xavi expected to be on his side. It also came from months earlier.
Saying he was going and putting all that behind him gave Xavi a sense of peace and liberation, which turned out to be temporary. It also saw things change a bit; the environment above all. After every match, at every press conference, he trotted out the same sentence, as if trying to convince himself too, justifying the decision: the team has been better since I said I was leaving. He never really explained why – and if saying he was leaving was good for him, it’s worth asking what saying he’s staying will do now – but he kept repeating it, over and over again. The results improved. They remained unbeaten for 13 and won 10.
Players responded. Even some of those Xavi hadn’t expected came closer. Some even asked if he could change his mind, perhaps a hint of guilt, a realization that a new man might not be a guarantee. A new man, not coincidentally, who Barcelona had not been able to secure.
Fans also responded. During some of those European matches, Montjuïc, their temporary home and a terrible place to watch football, actually felt a bit like home. There was warmth, support. He started to feel that internally too, something that wasn’t always present before. By beating Napoli they reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League and that felt really important, a step back. Then they won in Paris. If the fans stoned the Barcelona bus before the second leg, it was by accident.
“It’s a cocktail of things that led me to make this decision,” Xavi said yesterday. “It wasn’t a matter of money or ego. The fans played an important role, a large part of this decision is down to them. This project is not finished yet and they have shown me a lot of affection. The complicity and support of the players has been very important.”
You don’t know what you have until (you say) it’s gone. He actually was enjoying this sometimes. The same question was asked at every press conference. Are you Certainly you’re not staying? And at every press conference he would say that nothing has changed. It got a bit weird, a pantomime being played over and over again. Soon Xavi added the line a dia de hoy to his answers: from today. From todayNothing has changed, which meant things and feelings changed, and tomorrow is another day. That no sounded a lot like a yes or at least a maybe. Actually maybe this could be work after all.
The club’s message also changed. There was no ready-made replacement – a reality that cannot be overlooked – and the man who was still there had stabilized things. Deco, Yuste, Laporta: they all left the door open, first a little, then more and more open. In the end they said it directly: we will try to convince Xavi to stay. There was no big promise – Barcelona don’t have the money to make big signings and the summer will be difficult – but there is understanding. And just the fact that they tried, that they wanted him, meant something.
So bad that even a return to reality, two defeats in five days, did not end it in the end. It had been their worst week, which was a bit strange, and no one thinks this is perfect, but they had fought PSG and Madrid, and that was something. As of today, nothing has changed, but Wednesday was another day. One where they waited at Laporta’s house for the man who had run away three months earlier to walk back in.