Xavi Stays: My Reaction and Expectations as a Barca Fan

The Més Que Un Club (more than a club) started the 2023-24 season a bit underwhelmingly with a draw against Getafe away from home. After that first match, FC Barcelona, under the leadership of Xavi, went on to a good unbeaten run until they faced a real challenge against Real Madrid (their fierce rivals in the capital). The match ended up 2-1 in favor of Real Madrid and that too at the temporary home stadium of Barcelona.

The overall performance from the Blaugrana was good but the result wasn’t. That’s because of the lack of character this team had, which I am gonna talk about in a bit. 

Anyways, at the end of January, after a poor display of performance from the team, Xavi announced that he would leave the club at the end of this season. It was a shocker for me too, and I really didn’t get what Xavi was thinking but now it makes sense. He was trying to take the pressure off of the team.

That eventually worked and FC Barcelona started to improve. We fans were skeptical about the Champions League and our match-up with Napoli. But in the end, we came out victorious and qualified for the quarter-finals of the Champions League. That feeling was so good.

And not just that, we almost beat PSG in the last 8 if it wasn’t for the red card that Araujo took in the 29th minute of the match. I wish I could go in the past and shout in the stands not to do that, but OK.

After all that drama, Xavi reconsiders his decision to leave. A long meeting between the board and Xavi resulted in him staying for another season. Well, how this decision can impact the club and what I am expecting overall from the next season.

The next season, especially the LaLiga campaign, is going to be critical. I’ll be watching LaLiga on my big TV screen and enjoying enthralling contests uninterrupted(thanks to my Optimum Internet), which is one of the most reliable home WiFi’s in the US. With affordable plans, dependability of fiber-powered connection, and customer service that is tailored for Spanish speakers like me, it takes the edge over the other providers. You can explore more with a 60-second call at numero de Optimum en español.

My Honest Reaction When I Heard Xavi Was Staying

I, like most of the other fans, am pretty happy about Xavi’s decision to stay in for another season. Let me explain why.

If you have been in touch with the off-pitch news of the football, you might know the options available for the club were Hansi Flick, Roberto De Zerbi, Thomas Tuchel (he has lost the trust of Bayern’s board), Thiago Motta, and Rafa Marquez. 

All of them had more downsides than Xavi staying, and I will talk about them one by one.

The first name that was likely to be appointed as Barca manager was Hansi Flick, and to be very honest, I wasn’t sure about him. No doubt, he did great with Bayern’s 2020 season but that was because all the other clubs were suffering and Bayern was the only club who survived and was in the best shape.

Later, he left Bayern as a manager and was appointed as the manager of the German national team. There, he had a rough spell and the win ratio did not seem to improve, so we might say that with Bayern, it wasn’t because of him but because of the team. Another point I’d like to make is that he isn’t that experienced, especially with the Spanish top flight. He doesn’t even know the language so, it was a no for me.

Now, Roberto De Zerbi is a great coach in my opinion, but he was under contract, and hiring him would have taken a lot of expense. Expense! That is what Barca cannot afford so the idea of signing him was difficult to implement in the first place.

On the flip side, Tuchel has had issues with the board in the past, and managing the politics off the pitch is not his thing. At Barca, there is a lot of drama behind the scenes and likely there would have been issues with the board. So, Tuchel too wasn’t a rational decision.

Thiago Motta and Rafa Marquez, both were really inexperienced in managing a big team like FC Barcelona. 

In the end, it’s just Xavi who sounded the most realistic and the best option out of all.

What Fans Are Expecting for the Next Season?

Since Joan Laporta and Co. has placed their trust in Xavi, they have to take the blame if things don’t go as planned. Why Am I saying that?

It’s because, at the start of the season, Xavi didn’t get the necessary and required signings. Busquets leaving for MLS left a big gap in the midfield and the board signed a former LaMasia graduate who was unreliable for the sensitive role of a defensive midfielder – Oriol Romeu. 

Not just that, Xavi got betrayed by Ousmane Dembele, and there was no such replacement for the explosive winger, and then he had no option but to track back to the academy and hire new talents for the first team. 

Many new teenagers, such as the likes of Lamine Lamal (oh chico que talento), Pau Cubarsi, Fermin Lopez, and Hector Fort appeared in the first team to somewhat save Barca’s season. 

And now, after all the shiny new emergence of talents from LaMasia coupled with the necessary signing like the defensive midfielder, I believe Xavi can do a lot better than the previous season.

We, fans, are hoping for at least a domestic double and a similar or a better campaign in the Champions League!