It has been evident for a minimum of a pair months now that Xavi’s days as Barcelona supervisor have been numbered. The one stunning factor about Saturday’s information that Xavi is not going to handle Barcelona subsequent season was when the information broke and who did the breaking. And but that exact type of the announcement—Xavi, flanked by his spouse and his brother, exhibiting as much as the press convention following the most recent humiliating Barça defeat and stating that he’d unilaterally determined to step down from his place on the finish of the season—says as a lot about what has occurred as the easy info themselves.
As we have laid out earlier than, there’s nothing easy about this union between Barcelona and Xavi. His successes as a participant at Barcelona, his enduring standing as an emblem of the Pep Guardiola period, the methods his hyperlinks to Guardiola join him again in totemic chain to Johan Cruyff—there is no understanding Xavi’s possession of the Barça teaching job with out centering all of that. Any supervisor not named Xavi Hernández, with the meager managerial expertise Xavi had again in Oct. 2021, would not have gotten anyplace close to the Barça job within the first place. Any supervisor not named Xavi Hernández would’ve been thrown out on his ass months in the past, when it was abundantly clear the crew was going backwards and there was no cause to belief that the coach may reverse and even halt the skid. However this coach is actually named Xavi Hernández, and so he has loved ample reserves of religion and goodwill from the gamers, the followers, and the membership itself, till that nicely lastly went dry with Saturday’s ugly 5-3 loss to Villarreal.
Even Xavi’s resignation can’t be adequately defined with out returning to the symbolic realm. Within the lead-up to the Villarreal match Xavi, usually assured and optimistic—typically to a degree bordering on delusion—spoke concerning the state of his job with uncharacteristic morbidity. It was as if his conceptualization of his managerial tenure on the membership had already switched from current to previous tense. Here is how he responded to questions on his job doubtlessly being in jeopardy, from ESPN:
“I’ve been within the job for over two years and I’ve much less time than extra left, if you happen to take a look at the precedents. Pep [Guardiola] was right here for 4 years; Luis Enrique for 3. The purpose will arrive after I go, don’t fret.”
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“At this membership, we at all times worth folks when they’re about to depart,” he continued. “Now we worth [Ernesto] Valverde, [Ronald] Koeman, [Sergio] Busquets, when he was massacred in his ultimate years right here.
“[Jordi] Alba, too. It’s one thing to replicate on. I hope you miss me, too. I can worth what I’ve. I’m at the most effective membership on the planet, I respect coming to work, I’m joyful. I do know the calls for are excessive, however I worth issues within the second, not after.
Yow will discover within the above feedback some hints to what Xavi may’ve been after by resigning on Saturday. There are two methods of studying his resignation. The primary sees it as a really selfless act of the culé par excellence, a person who so deeply cares concerning the membership that he’d be prepared to rob himself of that which he most needs in order that Barcelona may thrive. The second view is extra cynical.
Possibly Xavi knew he was near being fired. Of arguably much more significance, perhaps Xavi figured the followers’ goodwill had lastly run out, and that the connection of adoration that had outlined his life as a public determine was on the verge of being severely and irrevocably marred. Possibly he noticed a possibility to behave first with this delayed resignation, and in doing so to win twice: profitable again the followers, who would love him another time for his selflessness, and profitable the appropriate to educate out the remainder of the season, guaranteeing that when he leaves it will likely be on his personal phrases.
And who is aware of, perhaps Xavi even hopes that, launched from the strain (which now falls squarely on membership president Joan Laporta, who will discover it troublesome to fireside Xavi now even when issues do not enhance) and benefitting from the inherent capriciousness of the game, he doubtlessly could lead on what continues to be a really gifted Barça crew to Champions League glory. And, ought to Xavi take Barça to a shock European title, would anybody actually need to maintain the triumphant supervisor to his phrase about resigning, when that selfless phrase, uttered in a low second, impressed the turnaround?
My hunch is that the reality is someplace within the center. I imagine Xavi genuinely does need what’s finest for the membership, and that, when it lastly grew to become simple that what’s finest for Barça isn’t him main it, he could be prepared to fall on his sword. Nonetheless, I additionally imagine there’s extra occurring right here than what first seems, which might befit a scenario so outlined by subtext.
For a very long time, Xavi’s fundamental need for his post-playing profession appeared not a lot to change into a supervisor, however slightly to change into the Barcelona supervisor. It could make sense if he’d heard the discuss him being the chosen one, the inheritor obvious within the hallowed Guardiola-Cruyff lineage, repeated so typically over time that he began to imagine it as nicely. That might clarify why he felt a managerial apprenticeship undertaken solely within the hardly rigorous environs of the Qatar Stars League would show enough preparation for one of many largest jobs within the sport. It may likewise clarify why, when he obtained the Barça job and it got here time to construct out his employees, he determined towards bringing in a longtime and confirmed second-in-command to complement his skinny expertise and as a substitute gave the position to his personal brother. It is smart, too, of his cussed repeated insistence that solely dangerous luck or the poor enactment by the gamers of his infallible directions may clarify why the crew underperformed. When you imagine your self to be the topic of a prophecy, it is easy to see the world by way of future and destiny and different arcane machinations that, of their very own mystical pressure, decide whether or not you’ll or is not going to attain that which was foretold.
“We at all times worth folks when they’re about to depart,” Xavi mentioned, just some days earlier than he introduced he was about to depart. He instructed us to “take a look at the precedents” earlier than citing Guardiola, Luis Enrique, Sergio Busquets, and Jordi Alba, 4 of essentially the most profitable and iconic figures in Barcelona historical past. Tellingly, Xavi additionally snuck in Ernesto Valverde and Ronald Koeman in that listing of Barça legends. Valverde and Koeman have been additionally Blaugrana players-turned-managers, whose managerial stints have been stained by fan unrest towards the top, which—opposite to Xavi’s spurious declare that point has softened harsh public assessments of their tenures—most likely did everlasting injury to their reputations on the membership. Xavi’s try and rehabilitate the pictures of Valverde and Koeman comes off as a preemptive effort to do exactly that for his personal.
Even ultimately, Xavi is making an attempt to weave himself into Barcelona’s storied historical past, selecting up threads from profitable occasions and knitting collectively a story of disrespect, unfairness, glory, and eventual redemption. It might show the savviest act but of his total managerial profession. Xavi could not wind up being the inheritor to Guardiola and Cruyff, however he’s decided to be the one to put in writing his personal story, and to verify it has a contented ending, even when which means writing it as an epitaph for himself. “I hope you miss me, too,” Xavi added, roughly making the entire gambit specific. And it is price remembering that he is not gone simply but.