Xavi Hernández

[DonAK]

He'll arrive in Barcelona on Thursday or Friday after Al-Sadd said they would only release him after their game next Wednesday. First match as a manager will be vs. Espanyol after the international break. His staff are already working on their plans for the team.

For what it's worth Javier Miguel is close to Xavi and his people.

https://as.com/futbol/2021/10/30/pr...=QUNUVUFMSURBRA==&m3=MQ==&m4=dmlkZW8=&m5=MjI=

 

[SeloBarca]

Dont know if its the right time for him.
He will inherit a very subpar squad, and is expected to do wonders.
Even if you paint a turd with gold, its still a turd.

 

[Barcilliant]

If he comes I hope we don't play the same old stale, toothless possession game.
The club is just in love with its legend. Football has moved on. We need to play faster, more incisive football and forget the ball hogging and walking the ball into the net. Transition has to be much faster and for the love of God get some real defenders especially CBS. I'm sick of the injuries too. Either the players are too soft or medical and trainers don't know their job. Even with Xavi we will struggle to qualify for EL. It's probably a good thing too because that is our current level and I'm sick of us being embarrassed in cl.

 

[Jadentheman]

I rather have him wait till his former team mates left the team. Now there will be issues and I’m not sure he will be able to maintain the locker room with seniority

 

[vegitot]

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.

Don't think football work that way but there is some good points.

Van Gaal is actually a total football coach but in a completely different way than Cruyff as Cruyff was his rival and vice versa. Van Gaal wanted his team play as a team, teamwork is the most important thing on the field. That's why he didn't care if you are the best in the world. Ask Rivaldo. Cruyff prefers individualism. There are also more differences between these two coaches but i won't dig deeper. Now Pep is the one who combines both of Van Gaal and Cruyff strength together to his coaching style.

Also during Van Gaal's time, Real Madrid found their success in Europe. 2 UCL in 3 years. So that's somehow similiar to EV's time.

And while Robaldinho is indeed one of the most important signing ever, but Edgar David is no less. Look at how Barca did before and after David:

19 games before David: 7 wins, 6 draws, 6 losses, 27 points, midtable team
19 games after David joined: 14 wins, 3 draws, 2 losses, 45 poinst, 2nd position.

This also opened a whole new chapter with new signings next in 2004 summer.

 

[vegitot]

If he comes I hope we don't play the same old stale, toothless possession game.
The club is just in love with its legend. Football has moved on. We need to play faster, more incisive football and forget the ball hogging and walking the ball into the net. Transition has to be much faster and for the love of God get some real defenders especially CBS. I'm sick of the injuries too. Either the players are too soft or medical and trainers don't know their job. Even with Xavi we will struggle to qualify for EL. It's probably a good thing too because that is our current level and I'm sick of us being embarrassed in cl.

Then it's a bad new to you as Xavi just says he is obsessed with possession.

 

[vegitot]

Found this on reddit:
"When you watch the goal that I linked above once, you will say to yourself, ?damn that?s a nicely worked goal?. When you watch it more than once, you will notice that the opponent?s defence and midfield absolutely suck, and you will be completely right. Basically, player registration rules in Qatar allow for three foreign players that can be from anywhere in the world, one foreign player from an AFC member country, and then one additional foreign player from an Arab nation. In Al Sadd?s case, Guilherme, Ayew and Cazorla are the three open spot foreign players, Woo is the Asian player, and Bounedjah is the Arab player. That leaves around 15-20 other players in the squad who are all Qataris. The thing is that Qatar is a country where less than 350 000 people are actually citizens, which means that the player pool is extremely small. Since Qatar?s extraordinary Asian Cup win almost three years ago, national team manager Felix Sanchez has introduced just 2-3 new players that have managed to compete for spots in Qatar?s starting XI. Essentially, there are not more than 16 players in Qatar that I would consider good enough to play on a decent Asian level. From those 16 players, 9 of them already play for Al Sadd. Another 5 play for rivals Al Duhail, and the remaining two play for fallen giants Al Gharrafa and Al Rayyan. That means that an overwhelming majority of players for other Qatari clubs are simply awful.

It is fair to say that domestic opposition in Qatar just can?t be taken seriously apart from the Al Duhail matches that occur 3-4 times per year if we count both league and cup matches. The real measure becomes the AFC Champions League in Xavi?s case, and I?m sad to say that he has spectacularly failed in three attempts so far. In the ACL, he often struggles against well-drilled defences that won?t just fall apart in a similar manner to how domestic opposition usually does. In his first season, Xavi weirdly decided to keep a 3-2-3-1 shape against Asian powerhouses Al Hilal despite getting an early red card, which led to Al Sadd conceding 4 at home. His team valiantly fought in the away leg, but the home loss was too much to overturn. In his second season, Al Sadd were again eliminated at home in the Ro16 after a disappointing performance against Iranian side Persepolis, where he again didn?t adapt to the organised defensive structure of Persepolis, which resulted in a limp performance where Al Sadd barely created anything before conceding a late goal from an Iranian set piece. In his third and what might be his final attempt at winning the ACL, Al Sadd were eliminated in the group stages after losing two matches to Saudi powerhouses Al Nassr. In both matches, Al Sadd were shellshocked by an opponent that counterattacked competently and exploited the massive spaces left by Xavi?s aggressive counterpressing. Al Sadd also noticeably struggled with the idea of not having 60%< possession and they looked clueless without the ball for longer periods. The wingers were not well-equipped enough defensively to defend wide as ?normal? wingbacks do in a back three, which led to Al Nassr easily moving the ball to wide spaces and overwhelming the wide spaces in Al Sadd?s 3-2 configuration in defence."

https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/com...t_of/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

 

[gasgas]

Those expecting wonders under Xavi, there's a rude awakening coming for you

 

[serghei]

Then it's a bad new to you as Xavi just says he is obsessed with possession.

And creating chances with it. Quote the full thing chief.

Having 70% possession and 2 shots on target in a game vs some Granada team would be a massive failure.

 

[vegitot]

And creating chances with it. Quote the full thing chief.

Having 70% possession and 2 shots on target in a game vs some Granada team would be a massive failure.

"In the ACL, he often struggles against well-drilled defences that won?t just fall apart in a similar manner to how domestic opposition usually does. In his first season, Xavi weirdly decided to keep a 3-2-3-1 shape against Asian powerhouses Al Hilal despite getting an early red card, which led to Al Sadd conceding 4 at home. His team valiantly fought in the away leg, but the home loss was too much to overturn. In his second season, Al Sadd were again eliminated at home in the Ro16 after a disappointing performance against Iranian side Persepolis, where he again didn?t adapt to the organised defensive structure of Persepolis, which resulted in a limp performance where Al Sadd barely created anything before conceding a late goal from an Iranian set piece. In his third and what might be his final attempt at winning the ACL, Al Sadd were eliminated in the group stages after losing two matches to Saudi powerhouses Al Nassr. In both matches, Al Sadd were shellshocked by an opponent that counterattacked competently and exploited the massive spaces left by Xavi?s aggressive counterpressing. Al Sadd also noticeably struggled with the idea of not having 60%< possession and they looked clueless without the ball for longer periods. The wingers were not well-equipped enough defensively to defend wide as ?normal? wingbacks do in a back three, which led to Al Nassr easily moving the ball to wide spaces and overwhelming the wide spaces in Al Sadd?s 3-2 configuration in defence."

 

[fergus90]

Couldn't really care what Xavi does in Qatar and the Asian Champions League. He's not my first choice for the job but if he's able to get a team playing cohesive and organised football then it's already a start.

Plus I think another poster already mentioned it and I can't remember who but it's a positive in the fact it could be a great appointment, or a positive that if he fails it's probably the nail in the coffin for every manager needing some Barcelona history to get the job.

 

[Bobo32]

Couldn't really care what Xavi does in Qatar and the Asian Champions League. He's not my first choice for the job but if he's able to get a team playing cohesive and organised football then it's already a start.

Plus I think another poster already mentioned it and I can't remember who but it's a positive in the fact it could be a great appointment, or a positive that if he fails it's probably the nail in the coffin for every manager needing some Barcelona history to get the job.

Was Quique, Tato and Valverde also nails in the same coffin? Koeman was the only historical disappointment lately, and he had a 20 year track record.

Xavi will be great. He should be given a lot of time, and if he doesn't work out, give it to someone like Pimienta.
He lost in the AFC CL against three powerhouses according to that text, once after an early red card, once against a hyper-defensive team that scored a late set piece, and once they only was the fourth best second placed team in the group stage, with 10p and the same goal difference but two less goals compared to the third placed team that went through.
The text does not mention that the first year loss was with the smallest margin in the semi final against the team that later won the final.

 

[vegitot]

Was Quique, Tato and Valverde also nails in the same coffin? Koeman was the only historical disappointment lately, and he had a 20 year track record.

Xavi will be great. He should be given a lot of time, and if he doesn't work out, give it to someone like Pimienta.
He lost in the AFC CL against three powerhouses according to that text, once after an early red card, once against a hyper-defensive team that scored a late set piece, and once they only was the fourth best second placed team in the group stage, with 10p and the same goal difference but two less goals compared to the third placed team that went through.
The text does not mention that the first year loss was with the smallest margin in the semi final against the team that later won the final.

Also have a heaviest defeat in club history in Fifa Club WC against Tunisia team. Can read the post again that his team are all clueless vs those teams.

EV's Barca also only lost 3-4 to the strongest Liverpool ever, the later went on to win UCL

Setien also only lost to eventually champion Bayern

Pimienta should aim for Segunda, not Liga though.

 

[fergus90]

Was Quique, Tato and Valverde also nails in the same coffin? Koeman was the only historical disappointment lately, and he had a 20 year track record.

Xavi will be great. He should be given a lot of time, and if he doesn't work out, give it to someone like Pimienta.
He lost in the AFC CL against three powerhouses according to that text, once after an early red card, once against a hyper-defensive team that scored a late set piece, and once they only was the fourth best second placed team in the group stage, with 10p and the same goal difference but two less goals compared to the third placed team that went through.
The text does not mention that the first year loss was with the smallest margin in the semi final against the team that later won the final.

Setien was employed because he apparently was a student of Cruyff or some manufactured nonsense like that and to be frank was an utter disaster to the point we get humiliated 8-2 by Bayern. Valverde did do extremely well domestically but he also was a former player and has left a mixed legacy.

The only real exception is Tata Martino. Sometimes former players do become great coaches but to me a club like Barcelona should be looking to employ the worlds best coaches regardless and not just someone with a Barca history just so they can bleat about Barca DNA, all whilst conjuring up football that doesn't remotely resemble it.

 

[mc_lovin]

Setien was employed because everyone else (Xavi, Koeman) declined. Just another mindless, hasty decision by Bartomeu.