Xavi Hernández

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Messigician

Messigician

Senior Member
In response to what?s circulating recently, the #AlSadd management reaffirms that Xavi has a two-year contract with the club and is fully focused on the team?s upcoming matches, to maintain our lead at the top of the league and to defend the title.

#AlwaysAlSadd

Stunning qatari arrogance
 
khaled_a_d

khaled_a_d

Senior Member
There is actually rumours from Arab media that AlSadd wants Laporta himself to come to Doha to negotiate with them for Xavi. A bit of ego/pride thing.
 
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vegitot

Senior Member
JohnN said:
Perhaps it's even better to continue the season with a temp Coach. The season is already lost, might as well see how he will cope. Worse or better than koeman.
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If Laporta really aims for a great coach next summer or this winter then agree.

Btw, the season isn't over though. Still alive in UCL and top 4 in Liga is clearly possible.
 
Andresito

Andresito

Senior Member
Staff member
Messigician said:
In response to what?s circulating recently, the #AlSadd management reaffirms that Xavi has a two-year contract with the club and is fully focused on the team?s upcoming matches, to maintain our lead at the top of the league and to defend the title.

#AlwaysAlSadd

Stunning qatari arrogance
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It's for the sake of their fans.
 
jairzinho

jairzinho

Senior Member
serghei said:
One thing I want to see under Xavi is more shots from within 16-25m range. Not wild attempts from way out, but man, when you have a clean space for a shot from just outside the box vs a cramped in defense, that is already a situation that is hard to come by, just pull the trigger and work the keeper.
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We don't have the players that can offer a genuine long shot, except for Coutinho as Zidane82 pointed out. It would be great If Xavi can come in and improve on that aspect but i doubt he would get guys like Frenkie to suddenly open up from outside. Majority of our midfield players don't have that skill. This is my biggest issue with most of these Barca DNA midfielders. They are good with the ball but too passive so you rarely have runs into the box, shots from outside, headers from open play etc. Even when they are in the box and there is space for a shot they tend to shit their pants.
 
BBZ8800

BBZ8800

Senior Member
JohnN said:
Perhaps it's even better to continue the season with a temp Coach. The season is already lost, might as well see how he will cope. Worse or better than koeman.
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In early 2000s, we had:
1997-2000: Van Gaal, sacked because he moved somewhat from Barca DNA. Won 2 La Ligas in 3 years, but it was not enough.
-- finished 1st, 1st and 2nd (5 points behind Deportivo)
2000/01: Hired Serra Ferrer. Sacked in April when we were 5th and 17 points behind Real Madrid.
2000/01: Hired Carles Rexach. He managed to reach the 4th place in the last few rounds, due to Rivaldo's magical scissorskick against Valencia for 3:2 in the 90th minute of the last round of a season.
2001/02: Rexach ended 4th in La Liga, lost against RM in a Champions league, lost against Figueres in Copa del Rey and lost to Balaguer in the Copa Catalunya. He was sacked, we re-hired Van Gaal whom we sacked in the first place in 2000.
2002/03: Van Gaal now got rid of Rivaldo and we remained without star players (except so-so Kluivert and Saviola).
Van Gaal had only 6 wins in the opening 16 rounds of 2002/03 and left in January.
We hired caretaker Antic. Barca recovered slightly from Van Gaal's horrible start, but we ended 6th, barely qualifying for Uefa cup, 1 point infront of Bilbao and 2 points infront of Betis, winning only 56 points. We were 22 points behind RM.
2003/04: then we hired Rijkaard.

My point, let's say that sacking Van Gaal was something like sacking Valverde.
Van Gaal won 2 titles in 3 seasons, EV won 2 in 2.
After sacking Van Gaal, we had 3 horrible seasons and a first half of 2003/04 when even Rijkaard was almost sacked.
So, we sucked for 3 and a half years.

Currently, since sacking EV, it passed only a year and a half.
So, if we want to compare it with the past, there is still a lot more room for a freefall and sinking deeper.

Also, since EV, we sacked only 2 coaches.
In 2000s after sacking Van Gaal, we sacked: Ferrer, Rexach, Van Gaal in the 2nd stint and Antic.

Judging by the 2000s, we still need to sack at least 2 coaches before seeing some improvements.
But, the bad thing is back then we had money and we bought Ronaldinho who changed our fortunes.
 
Windhook

Windhook

Well-known member
In his memoirs Stoichkov cites one particular episode - the moment Van Gaal first walked in the Barca locker room and remarked: "This place stinks of Cruyff so much...". Van Gaal couldn't stand Cruyff, lots of material on the matter to read if interests anyone. Anyway no wonder Van Gaal tried to dismantle Cruyff's system, but that process started at the club a year earlier with Bobby Robson.

Xavi had kept touch with Johan Cruyff until his final days, so I believe there were some valuable lessons in those conversations.

Our current crisis period looks worse than the early 00s as we had money back then and buying 2 players could change everything in club fortunes. It's the talent pool that concern me - it feels like we need to install a completely new defence. I'm still not convinced Eric Garcia is of any quality for Barca - doesn't have the physique, looked like some U-17 player compared to Benzema during a particular replay in the last El Clasico. Araujo was on fire in some games last season, but seems off lately. Mingueza was touted by the greatness Puyol as some sort of successor...
 
Windhook

Windhook

Well-known member
All sides involved play it cool and official for now. There are negotiations going on, very likely, but imagine Al Sadd just handing out their manager to Barca, how would that look in public? Laporta said yesterday:

We're working on a new coach. I am not going to say the options we have. It would not be professional. We don't want to damage anything.
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Total-Football

Total-Football

Senior Member
People (expectedly) speak about alsad with much prejudice and no real knowledge. Alsaaad most probably put half laliga table to sleep. Laliga nowadays is a glorified farmer league.
 
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vegitot

Senior Member
Total-Football said:
People (expectedly) speak about alsad with much prejudice and no real knowledge. Alsaaad most probably put half laliga table to sleep. Laliga nowadays is a glorified farmer league.
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So you are going to tell me a team from Tunisia is stronger than all of Laliga.

No wonder :boss:
 
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