Why Xavi stepped down as Barcelona coach, and candidates for the job

On Saturday, the beginning gun sounded on the search for the subsequent Barcelona supervisor after one other coach was, as one supply described it to ESPN, “chewed up and spat out” by the membership’s extremely demanding, political and complicated equipment.

It took 4 years to put on Pep Guardiola down, three for Luis Enrique to name it a day and, simply over two years after taking cost, Xavi Hernández unexpectedly introduced he’ll depart the membership at the finish of the season after a 5-3 defeat at house to Villarreal in LaLiga. That loss accomplished a depressing January for Barça during which in addition they misplaced 4-1 to Real Madrid in the Spanish Supercopa last and have been dumped out of the Copa del Rey, crushed 4-2 by Athletic Club in the quarterfinals.

Barcelona have been ninth in LaLiga when Xavi took over in 2021, guiding the crew to a second-place end and securing Champions League soccer. He then led Barça to a primary LaLiga title since 2019 in his first full season in cost, as nicely as claiming the Supercopa with a superb efficiency in the last in opposition to Real Madrid.

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Since then, each midfielder Sergio Busquets and winger Ousmane Dembélé, two of Xavi’s favorite gamers, have left — and neither was correctly changed — whereas accidents, notably to goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen and midfielder Gavi, have additionally broken the crew. Decisions on incoming gamers, such as the double mortgage signing of defender João Cancelo and ahead João Félix — each shoppers of superagent Jorge Mendes — have usually been made above the coach’s head, too.

Cracks have been papered over earlier in the marketing campaign with some good outcomes, however the wheels have come off in the previous few months. Barça have conceded 4 or extra targets on 4 events of their previous six video games; the 5-3 defeat at the weekend was the first time they’d allowed 5 targets in a house league fixture since dropping 5-1 to Real Madrid in 1963. With the membership 11 factors off the tempo in LaLiga and Xavi below excessive stress each internally and externally, he revealed that he’ll stroll away at the finish of the season, no matter any success between now and the summer time, to “reduce the tension” that had grown round the membership.

“We have done a great job and are proud of what we have done during these two years,” a supply on Xavi’s teaching workers advised ESPN. “We achieved all objectives, qualifying for the Champions League and winning trophies the next season, but now is the right moment to leave.

“Barça’s a membership that chews folks up and spits them out. It eats every part up. And there are occasions that we have now felt there was a sure lack of respect. The state of affairs was insufferable.”

ESPN has spoken to people in and around the club about the background to Xavi’s decision, the curiosities that will once again arise when it comes to picking a new coach and who is in the running to be appointed.

Why Xavi chose to step down

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Laporta supports Xavi’s decision to leave Barca

Barcelona president Joan Laporta discusses Xavi Hernandez’s announcement that he will leave the club at the end of the season.

Some might argue that Xavi, 44, is jumping before he is pushed. Neither results nor performances have been satisfactory for a while and while Barça’s spending has been curbed by LaLiga’s restrictions, he has been backed when possible by the club, with over €200 million used on signings during his tenure. However, Xavi insists that this is a decision he made a while ago — and one he’d been stewing on for much longer. He blames the intensity and the demands of the “entorno,” which loosely translates to “the surroundings that circulates in the membership” and includes the swirl of gossip and leaks generated by the media, along with infighting among former and current board members.

Coaching Barça almost becomes a political position, as one source puts it: you deal with up to six news conferences a week, often receiving questions that are beyond your remit, related to other club activity or wider issues in Catalonia or Spain, with every response scrutinized to an agonizing degree. If that atmosphere got to Guardiola and Luis Enrique, two treble-winning managers with the club, what chance did Xavi have?

Sources say the writing was on the wall when the club’s hierarchy insisted Xavi include Ronald Araújo, Ilkay Gündogan and Robert Lewandowski in the squad for a meaningless Champions League clash with Antwerp in December — Barca’s path to the round of 16 had been confirmed when they beat FC Porto 2-1 in their previous game — after he’d originally left them out. That saga undermined his position, with the differences exposed when Xavi said it was a “membership determination” to rejigger the squad and sporting director Deco said it was the manager’s choice. Barça lost that game in Belgium.

The source in the coaching staff added that Xavi finally feels “liberated” since making his decision to depart public, while the players rallied together by holding a team-bonding lunch at Lewandowski’s house on Monday.

Sources have advised ESPN that some members of the squad really feel accountable for Xavi’s exit and would have appreciated him to remain whereas, as beforehand revealed on ESPN, others had begun to lose religion in his concepts. However, the hope now’s that united targets — in LaLiga and the Champions League — may have a galvanising impact. “We are going to give everything to finish the season in the best way possible,” the supply mentioned.

“The objectives from the start of season may seem distant right now, but we are not going to give up on them.”

The job of changing Xavi

In the background, Barça will step up their search for Xavi’s alternative, with sources saying the membership will perform a “thorough recruitment process” and that no developments are imminent. The seen face of that course of will likely be Deco, who in impact changed each Mateu Alemany and Jordi Cruyff final summer time. Many others will even be concerned, beginning with president Joan Laporta, who will search counsel from these he trusts the most — together with vp Rafa Yuste, director Enric Masip and his largest adviser, Alejandro Echevarría, who doesn’t have an official function at the membership.

Laporta additionally tends to work with brokers and intermediaries with whom he has shut ties. That is true when it comes to the switch market, and sources say it is going to even be the case with regards to appointing the subsequent coach. Mendes and Pini Zahavi are two such brokers with whom he has particularly shut hyperlinks.

Beyond these influences, Barça are likely to worth sure components greater than others compared to a few of Europe’s different largest golf equipment. Things like inside information of the membership, some form of “club legend” standing and speaking up a recreation based mostly on the membership’s Johan Cruyff-inspired beliefs are sometimes given extra weight than expertise or suitability to the trendy recreation.

The membership’s monetary state of affairs additionally poses issues. Barça are over their LaLiga-imposed spending restrict, which implies they have to both proceed to make cutbacks or generate extra income to have the ability to spend money on the squad — together with the teaching place. A supply at LaLiga says the risk of with the ability to pay compensation for a supervisor below contract — ESPN reported that Chelsea needed to pay Brighton as much as €21m to get Graham Potter out of his contract, for instance — along with their wage at the second is “slim.”

“The thing the next coach must have is a clear idea of the way they want to play,” Xavi Vilajoana, a former Barça director and presidential candidate in the previous election, advised ESPN. “I am speaking about the idea, not the system. For that, you have to keep in mind what players you have and what players you are going to have — meaning players from La Masia [the academy]. From there, you analyse the coaches that fit that idea and the experience they have — and if they are free.

“You’re trying for somebody who is aware of or understands the membership’s concepts with regards to enjoying fashion, somebody who has confidence in the gamers coming from the academy and who is an effective communicator, somebody whose information reaches the gamers, however at the similar time is ready to encourage and be demanding with the group.

“A history with the club carries weight, but the weight of expectation is much more. It cannot be the case that we have to win nearly every trophy every season. That is not possible. What can be demanded is that we compete in every competition and are in a situation to win it until the end.”

It all makes for an advanced cocktail when making an attempt to agree on one title, with folks pulling in numerous instructions for totally different causes, which explains why such a wide selection of managers — with differing types, ranges of expertise and/or up to date employment — have already been linked to the emptiness.

Candidates for the job

Barça went for an in-house possibility after Guardiola stepped down, appointing his assistant Tito Vilanova in 2012. Members of Xavi’s backroom workers — which incorporates his brother, Oscar — should not being thought of, however Barça Atlétic coach Rafa Marquez is in the working and maybe represents the most reasonably priced possibility on the desk. Sources advised ESPN earlier than Xavi’s announcement that the former Mexico worldwide can be a front-runner to interchange Xavi on an interim foundation ought to he depart midseason — which continues to be not utterly out of the query — however there are doubts as as to whether Marquez can be given the job long-term and his probabilities of a promotion are decreased.

Returns for Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola and Paris Saint-Germain’s Luis Enrique have additionally been touted, although each are considered internally as “unrealistic” choices.

Ex-Barça B coach García Pimienta additionally has been talked about. He has achieved a outstanding job at Las Palmas, who sit in the prime 10 of LaLiga after being promoted final season. However, sources observe that his relationship with Laporta has been marked by the method of his dismissal in 2021. Pimienta had achieved an excellent job with the reserve crew, taking them near promotion to the second tier whereas creating gamers, with many observers tipping him to be the first-team coach at some point. It was a shock to everybody that he was sacked, whereas nonetheless below contract, and changed by Marquez.

“In the last two coaching changes when I was on the board, I was left ‘alone’ betting on García Pimienta to replace first [Ernesto] Valverde and after Quique Setién too,” Vilajoana added. “I was not able to convince my colleagues. Garcia Pimienta could be a good option now. [Portugal coach] Roberto Martínez also has a profile that could adapt to what Barça need.”

In Spain, Míchel, who has guided Girona to the prime of LaLiga, and Imanol Alguacil, who has achieved an excellent job at Real Sociedad over numerous years, have been talked about as prospects. Yet neither has expressed curiosity — “I am focused on Girona,” Míchel mentioned on Sunday. “I have a contract here until 2026. Xavi is Barça.”

Alguacil additionally has a contract by means of 2025, which may worth Barça out of a transfer, whereas attainable Premier League targets such as Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta, who spent 5 years at the Catalan membership as a teenager, and Brighton & Hove Albion’s Roberto De Zerbi would additionally come at a value. Arteta has already dominated himself out: “It’s totally untrue and I’m really upset about [the rumour],” Arteta mentioned at a information convention on Monday about reviews that he needed to go away Arsenal. “I’m immersed in a beautiful journey with the club and there is still a lot to do.”

Laporta, in the meantime, has developed a penchant for the German college of teaching. ESPN first reported in 2021, whereas Ronald Koeman was nonetheless in cost, that he had sounded out the availability of Hansi Flick, the Bayern Munich coach at the time. Sources say that market will likely be explored as soon as once more, with no doorways being shut and agent Zahavi’s information of the nation and contacts seemingly for use.

Flick has been out of labor since being dismissed final September by the Germany nationwide crew, a task that noticed him take pleasure in a number of matches at Barça’s Olympic Stadium this season in an effort to hold tabs on goalkeeper Ter Stegen and midfielder Ilkay Gündogan. But he is removed from the solely candidate rising from Germany: Bayern coach Thomas Tuchel final weekend spoke of a need to educate in Spain, though the Bavarian facet have since launched a press release making it clear his feedback weren’t in relation to Xavi’s announcement.

Elsewhere, Julian Nagelsmann has a contract with Germany solely till after Euro 2024 and Jurgen Klopp final week introduced he’ll depart Liverpool at the finish of the season. Klopp has mentioned he’s working out of power and will take a sabbatical, however that hasn’t stopped him showing as the front-runner, with fan polls (39% of Diario Sport readers selecting him as Xavi’s alternative) and media shops (Diario Sport itself) branding him Barça’s prime goal.

Other choices might sound out of left discipline at first, however a more in-depth look will make them clear. Sérgio Conceição is out of contract with Porto in the summer time and is represented by Gestifute, the company owned by Mendes. Thiago Motta, a former Barça midfielder, is doing an excellent job at Bologna — sources say he additionally has an excellent relationship with Deco as a result of along with being former teammates, they each hail from São Bernardo do Campo in Brazil.

Sources near the Barça hierarchy insist in a perception that the prime job at Camp Nou — which is because of reopen later this yr — stays alluring. There is a few distinctive younger expertise coming by means of into the first crew (Gavi, Pedri, Lamine Yamal, Alejandro Balde) and regardless of their type this season, they gained LaLiga lower than a yr in the past.

Sources have advised ESPN that Deco has been inundated with brokers providing their shoppers for the function. Some sources additionally recommend that Laporta wish to appoint a “big name” in the recreation, however others level out he has all the time gone for extra inexperienced choices — Frank Rijkaard, Guardiola and Xavi — throughout his two tenures as president.

Whoever is chosen will perceive that the job does include warning. Speaking on Tuesday, Guardiola mentioned the “the pressure you feel in Barcelona is not comparable to anywhere else.” At the similar time, Xavi was sending a warning to his eventual successor, saying he has felt “undervalued” and “worthless” and had the feeling that no matter he did wouldn’t be sufficient to fulfill the calls for of the entorno.

“The same will happen [to the next coach],” he mentioned. “This is the problem. I would advise them to be themselves, to be natural and to not allow themselves to be influenced.

“My dream was to educate Barça, win and play good soccer. I’m happy with what I’ve achieved and I’ve a transparent conscience. My recommendation to my successor can be to take pleasure in it, however it’s not possible.”