Viva Barca
Xavi Hernandez, a Barcelona legend, gave a detailed interview to digital magazine The Tactical Room.
Martí Perarnau: When you left Barça did you feel that elite football was getting to be too much for you?
Xavi: It was because the year before I had a very rough time. The 2013-14 season took a lot out of me, especially on the mental side and I wanted to leave football. That last league game, at the Camp Nou, playing against Atletico for the title, being left on the bench by Tata Martino was one of the biggest blows of my career… I had played the whole season and then all of a sudden, on the day the league is decided, I find myself on the bench. It was a hit. I was 34 years old. I started to think that people weren’t seeing me be as competitive as before, seeing me provide a good change in rhythm… It was a very strange sea son because there was little exigency in the dressing room, due to the circumstances. We were coming from Tito’s tragic illness, Tata wasn’t a very demanding person. Arid to top it off, I go to the World Cup and the same thing happens: I start against The Netherlands, but when we’re playing for our life against Chile I don’t play. And I was in Brazil because of Vicente (Del Bosque). After we win the Euros again in 2012 I told him I was retiring from the national tear, that I wanted to leave after a win, but Vicente talked me into staying until Bra. and in the key game I find myself out of the team… These are circumstances., of course…
After these 2 hits president Bartomeu calls me and asks me to stay half a year more because Luis Enrique was left without captains: Victor (Valdes) had left, Puyol too, I was laving and there was a great hole left. Luis Enrique called me and told me: “Don’t be silly, Pelopo (his nickname), come to the training center and we’ll talk about this.” And Lucho talked me into staying for another year. The, in February 2015 i signed with Al Sadd.
This last year at Barça I saw that I was at my limit. I could have played bits and parts for another sea sort but I didn’t want to do that for 2-3 !,,ears. I think that you have to be a dignified sportsman and I tried to be humble and do my work as a good captain durrig the season: I had given my word to Luis that I’d be a good captain and do my pan and bring the group along, so I couldn’t be mad at not playing a lot. It wasn’t an easy year for me, but it was useful because I found o. that I couldn’t play 2 games in 3 days without feeling the strain a bit. Actually, there aren’t players over 35 starting in the top teams: Xabi Alonso, Lahm, Pirlo, me… We’ve all accepted the passage of time. It’s natural.
But I wanted to keep playing, even if it was at a different level, and that’s why I accepted this offer from Qatar. The Aspire Academy was important. because I has allowed me to notice other training methodologies and other football concepts: I’ve seen training from Bayern, Milan, Conte’s teams, Gabi Heinze’s teamor Cultural Leonesa where I leaned by the side of Oscar Cano. And I like seeing all types of ideas. I’m a pure football man and I like seeing it from all possible sides.
Martí Perarnau: Do you have the feeling that Barça has deviated from the model of play, the clear path it had and the firm reliance on the academy?
Xavi: I think that in general we’ve fallen asleep a bit. I’m sure that people thought: “We have Puyol, Iniesta, Messi, Xavi, Valdes, Pique… Pedro and Busquets are coning along, this is all going along nicely. And surely eve, year we’ll have 2 new academy products…” But it’s not like that, it doesn’t work that way. I didn’t learn to play in the first team I learned to play in La Masia in the Infant. t ea, the Cadete team and the Juvenil team, because I had Joan Vila as a coach and he was so demanding, in the best sense of the word. Demanding with the concepts, the technique, the tactics, the theory, the practice, everything… Vila gave you a masters course. The academy coaches have to form players, they have to teach Winning the league doesn’t matter. You have to form players at that age. If you win that’s good, but it’s not the objective. These days we’ve see, for example, how Barça B was promoted to the Segunda. I’m glad for that, but that’s not essential. Pep Guardiola took over the B team in Tercera and took Busquets and Pedro to the first team and a also Jeffren, Victor Sanchez and Bojan And they had played in Tercera. And it was ok, they made the jump from Tercera to the first league without any problems. Why? Because they were well drilled in Barça’s style. The B team being in Segunda or Segunda B or Tercera doesn’t matter. Of course I’m glad for their success, but for development, even if we’re talking about competitive development, that’s not the main point. The main point is to develop the play er fight for this model of play. This is the priority, how many players in that team have the ability to make the jump to the first team? That’s the main question. And right now the answer isn’t positive. The goal of the B team is to have 6-S-10 players with the potential to make the jump to the first team not 2 or 3. So that the first team coach can rely on the full back or the mediocentro or the interior if one of his play ers gets injured. That’s the point of the academy. And in general I think that Bar, has fallen asleep regarding that…
Martí Perarnau: The “muscular” player is a recurring issue for Barça
Xavi: You have to look at all the aspects of the game and it’s obvious that physical ability is important in football, but for Barça’s play it’s not the most important thing. I don’t disparage it, but it’s not the main thing. With Pep we had Keita a or Yaya Toure and they won duels, but the team wasn’t playing to win duels. Duels were punctual moments in the game. We avoided the, we tried to avoid the opponent, and to stay away from individual battles. If something happened we had Keita or Yaya to try and win it, but our idea was to avoid them. I don’t see Barça’s future in any other way, without a style different than the one we’ve had Let’s not play around, we’re the team that ha s won the most trophies in the last decade. I have to say that Luis Enrique changed some thing, but the system wasn’t lost. But we have to go back to the essence. Of course signings naturally influence this. If y ou have players that run it’ s different than if you sign for positional attacks.
Martí Perarnau: So Barça has to reinforce its main idea.
Xavi: Yes, we have to recover the same thing we always did. You saw the B team playing or the Juvenil team or any academy team and it was a spectacle. I went to see their games and you could see the same patterns repeated But if every coach does his own thing then things change even if you don’t want them to. No, we have to go back to the same idea. We cant play an all or nothing style. It can work out, like at the Bernabeu this year, but that’s not our model. And I know that Messi is extraordinary and that he can solve impossible games on his own, but our concept of play isn’t about gambling, because 9 out of 10 times you don’t end up getting what you wait.
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Diana Kristinne
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