Xavi, during the Bernabéu classic. /
Analysis
The Barça coach turned fifty games with the worst balance as Barça coach in 20 years
Xavi Hernández will take time to forget what has been a terrifying week for Barcelona. The Catalan coach has seen in just four days how Inter Milan left him on the ropes in the Champions League and how Real Madrid snatched the lead from him in a classic in which his team did not have the ability to react again against a direct rival. It is the worst moment since he returned to Barcelona, low hours for a project that does not finish taking off.
«The feeling is that we are in a negative dynamic in which nothing comes out of us. We have to play much better, be more mature and compete”, said Xavi in a press conference in which all were serious faces. It is not for less, in just one week Barça has gone from the euphoria of getting the league leadership from its greatest enemy two years later to seeing how the new project falters at the first change, in the month of October.
And it is that the sensations that Barça has left in four days have buried all the positive that had happened in the streak of seven straight wins in the League. The culés have diminished again against teams that should be direct rivals to compete for the titles. Against Inter, Xavi’s men entered the clash well but as the minutes went by they were unable to lower the revolutions of the match, sleep the match and make it play what the Catalans were most interested in. That same feeling was transferred to a classic in which the whites never felt the fang of their rival and in which Xavi’s men were once again too weak in defense when Madrid decided to attack.
To make matters worse, Xavi was one of the great players in the match against Madrid. The coach from Egar insisted once again on that model of infinite possessions and pressure after loss, a style that became suicidal due to the whites’ ease in getting out of those ambushes and the lack of speed of some footballers in the withdrawal that the coach himself from Tarrasa lined up. Sergio Busquets appeared in the photo again as he was unable to stop Toni Kroos in the first goal, both full-backs, two bets from Xavi, -Sergi Roberto and Balde- were not up to the task and his insistence with the starting wingers made the changes of Ferran Torres and Ansu Fati arrived too late.
The numbers tell you
“Xavi stay” or “to the Europa League” are some of the chants that Xavi had to listen to this Sunday in a Santiago Bernabéu that took advantage of the wave to take its toll on one of the fiercest enemies of the white fans. And it is that the madridista feud knows that it is a very delicate moment in Can Barça and that right now the difference between the two teams is abysmal.
Proof of this are the figures. Since Xavi landed at the Camp Nou in November 2021, he has played a total of 50 games, with a record of 28 wins, eleven draws and eleven losses. His numbers are worse than those of all the coaches that the culé club has had in the last twenty years. Since Carles Rexach, in the 2001-2002 academic year, no one had a worse record than the current coach of the Barça team.
Since then, Frank Rijkaard, who had a hesitant start in which he recorded 28 wins, twelve draws and ten losses, Pep Guardiola (37-8-5), Tito Vilanova (36-8-6), Gerardo Martino (37-8-5), Luis Enrique (42-3-5), Ernesto Valverde (36-11-3) and, finally, Ronald Koeman, who also beats Tarrasa with 33 wins, seven draws and ten losses.
Xavi’s poor record is even worse if extrapolated to the Champions League. He has directed the Barça team in six games and has barely achieved a victory -the one he achieved against Viktoria Pilsen this season-, with two draws and three defeats. These figures are also worse than those of his predecessors. Carles Rexach had achieved five, Antic three, Rijkaard three, Guardiola four, Vilanova four, Martino four, Luis Enrique five, Valverde four and Koeman five. No one in this century has achieved worse figures than Xavi, although, yes, most were fortunate to have Leo Messi among their ranks.
