Xavi

Most likely that Barca stint made Lucho double down on some of the principles that became non negotiable in his teams and made him better coach.

The power dynamic of team also.

The best coaches as ever are the ones that learn and evolve.
 
Mind you he isn't a perfect coach which is stating the obvious, he failed to win a 2nd CL with us. Which he should have

Also with Spain wasting rodri at CB is a decision that needs to be studied.

Not using thiago & koke in their primes but relying on Pedri & Gavi I've long said didn't compute.

But still can't get behind xavi or flick would match his success in Europe.
 
jamrock said:
Mind you he isn't a perfect coach which is stating the obvious, he failed to win a 2nd CL with us. Which he should have

Also with Spain wasting rodri at CB is a decision that needs to be studied.

Not using thiago & koke in their primes but relying on Pedri & Gavi I've long said didn't compute.

But still can't get behind xavi or flick would match his success in Europe.
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Luis Enrique is more durable. He is likely to keep discipline for longer and thus keep the team competitive for longer. It is not that hard to win a CL with the best side in the world. Winning multiple though... that is indeed tough.
 
Xavi left Barca and Raph, Pedri, Lewa etc seemed happy to see the back of him.

Dembele didnt want to hang around enough either.. not because of Xavi but the pull of working under him wasnt there much either it would appear.

How coaches deal with their best players/egos matter.

Xavi is an abrasive wee excuse maker at times that I dont think many were all that sad to see go.

On top of that Xavis back room team with his brother..shouldnt have been allowed.

His name and respect at Barca went a long way and most likely had some good ideas at times but his style of play and man management of players probably what stops him being sought after.
 
Xavi made excuses about everything from weather to grass to referees to his own players week in week out a different or repeated on.

Their is a difference in making players two the line and screaming abuse at them if make an error.. as Xavi did more than once.

Players can put up with a coach being harsh but fair if they are consistent and correct.

Coaches who are politicians for themselves get seen through in end.

I honestly dont think Xavi was even mentally stable in that 2nd season.. not that qualified to make that call but he looked out of control and on edge of tears constantly.

Felt like he quickly went from a legend with a bit of an aura that players wanted there to a man a bit out his depth in many ways when all became too much.
 
Xavi's problem is his arrogance. Not humble enough to start from a lower level. You won't be lucky enough to start your career at the top. But he's young.

What he should do is instruct his agents to look for lower level teams with technical players who can play some form of possession football. As these teams are small and don't have high objectives like making CL places, winning titles, etc, it will be relatively easy to stand out.
 
Needs to get more experienced team around him and reign in the emotional impacts big time.

Also improve tactically.

He was still trying to play overly positional football and had this mythical idea of Spanish football being unique.

Even Pep has said Positional football is long gone... these things go in circles but for now man to man marking is huge and needs more flexibility of where players can go to find the ball and more abilty/freedom to carry the ball.

Teams mark man to man and found ways to stop it more and more.
 
serghei said:
Xavi's problem is his arrogance. Not humble enough to start from a lower level. You won't be lucky enough to start your career at the top. But he's young.

What he should do is instruct his agents to look for lower level teams with technical players who can play some form of possession football. As these teams are small and don't have high objectives like making CL places, winning titles, etc, it will be relatively easy to stand out.
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Xavi is the embodiment of everything wrong with Barcelona
 
There was nothing wrong with Xavi tactically. Tactics are naturally one of his strong points. It's more personality issues for me. And emotional as you say, but I can understand him being emotional at Barcelona.
 
There was a ton wrong with Xavi tactically and not a strong point at all.

Played likes of Pedri as a positional cone far far too often.

Also the type of players he wanted to bring in were out dated too often.

Tactically he was nowhere near elite and seemed a bit lost about how to set up a team on ball once the set DM Busi failed.
 
If you don't have the right personality, even though you can be very good at what you do, you will naturally be less liked, and less likely to land yourself in good situations.

As a player, Xavi's superiority and arrogance was tolerated because he was too good. As a manager though, you have to earn your stripes first. If you do that, everything changes.

Imagine mid 2000s Mourinho if he didn't win to close people's mouths.
 
Xavi was not good tactically and how is teams set up will be a reason bigger clubs dont rate him.

The tactics of team looked lost too often and without clear idea.

Looked like stuck in past after couldnt win with sole DM and two positioned midfielders ahead of it.

He was away from sharp end of European football for 7/8 years and it showed.

His legend status worked to some extent and some good ideas but he isnt top tactically or a top man manager either going by Barca stint.
 
Simeone's AM barely managed to score a goal against his side. He was very good. AM didn't score a single goal in 4 games. Even Simeone praised him at the time.

He knew how to set up the team. Even vs Lucho PSG, scoring 3 and winning away is not something easy to do. With a much inferior side.

People didn't like Barca back then because he used the advantage possession gives you as a defensive shield. He took a completely different approach to Flick to tackle the same issues basically.
 
serghei said:
There was nothing wrong with Xavi tactically. Tactics are naturally one of his strong points. It's more personality issues for me. And emotional as you say, but I can understand him being emotional at Barcelona.
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He was stubborn, his setup actually was pretty good to start with, but after we had used this for a while, teams started to adjust and understand our attacking patterns, however we never changed them.

His football was really conservative, the players had zero licence to leave their positions, and it could make us very predictable against higher level opposition. Teams started to set up their defense like this : double up wide, and narrow once the ball comes into midfield, rinse, repeat, then we started to cross over and over.

Because we had zero fluidity or movement out of the fixed positions, opponents knew exactly where the ball was going every attack.

Once we hit a downturn and started tactically struggling more he lost his head and went crazy after that.

With that said, Flick suffers from a somewhat opposing issue in that his scheme is too expressive and fluid. A middle ground between both of them is probably ideal.
 
serghei said:
Simeone's AM barely managed to score a goal against his side. He was very good. AM didn't score a single goal in 4 games. Even Simeone praised him.
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Because Xavi's football was good at restricting lesser opposition, or specifically teams who couldn't fight for control in the midfield. We'd defend with the ball and rigorously stick to positions so it was hard to effectively counter against us.

We weren't offensively strong enough to challenge at the top level. The way we were set up made it almost impossible to chase a game or to fight back if anything went wrong, because we took very little risk. Dynamic, attacking teams were difficult to deal with.

I think defensively we could take some pointers from our success under him, even if we were lucky not to concede more in his LaLiga winning season. As mentioned above, I think we can learn also from Xavi's excellent record against Simeone and our far better defensive record.
 
Xavi was not good tactically at all.. was miles from elite.

He lacked modern ideas to play on front foot and reverted to more defensive football that worked at times and also result in a lot of bad results.

To point his brother being on backroom team got more and more slack and they had agreed to take in new coaches.

There is nothing Flick needs to look at Xavis team and learn from at all.

If he wants a more balanced approach can be sure as fuck it wouldnt be the set up under Xavi that looks to and how his brother set that up.
 
I don't think teams adjusted to his Barca.

Xavi knew very well that the style he used in 2022-23 to win the league in a clear fashion was not tolerable and sustainable at Barcelona. It's not something we can use in a season by season approach. It was a once and done thing. Do it to win after some really bad years, and then use the confidence to build what you actually are demanded to build at Barcelona.

And he tried this. As time passed we became offensively better, but problems started to appear in defense. We started to notice more and more, that the defense we had in 2022-23 was not based on individual quality at all, but tied to his super cautious tactics. A bit like Arteta. We all remember those 1-0 and 2-1 wins, sitting behind leads and closing shop.

His big mistake was that he didn't cope well emotionally with the disappointment going from 2022-23 to a worse 2023-24. The club was willing to stick with him despite that poor league season, because we saw a step forward in CL, making a quarterfinal after several years of being basically an EL team in terms of quality.

And the PSG tie was promising, gave us some improvement for the next season. Beating them away, leading them 1-0 at home, with Lewandowski missing a big chance to make it 2-0. Then Araujo moment happened, and PSG had the skill to exploit it.

He failed to be emotionally stable in 2023-24. Had he been calmer, he would've been fine. Madrid declined soon after, their squad became less and less cohesive, and never managed to produce another league season with a 90+ points total like in 2023-24. And Yamal exploded for us. We had some things going, we weren't exactly hopeless as he believed.

But then we got Flick, so the club didn't really miss out. He was the only one who missed out. He's still bitter and mad about it judging by his interviews, but he was the one to blame.
 
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Barca 22/23 was nowhere near an eltie defence.

They rode their luck a lot and took MATS being voted best player in Spain.

They lost 4-0 at home to Real.. worst home defeat in decades.

Lost 5 goals in 2 games v inter. 5 goals in 2 games v Bayern. 4 in 2 games v an average United side.

Season before they conceded what was it 6 as went out to Frankfurt?

Many said what he is doing is not a top defence or sustainable and so it proved the next season.
 
MATS being very good doesn't prove anything. Donarumma was by far the best keeper in CL when PSG won. It doesn't mean the manager's work was not notable.

You can view it from other angle also. That MATS and Dembele had their best seasons at Barcelona under Xavi, if you want.
 
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