“Placing things in their rightful place” This is how the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language defines the word order. And there has not been a more repeated term during Xavi Hernández's press conference prior to the duel against Alavés. The Barça coach has made a clear diagnosis of what is happening to his team after two games, against Real Sociedad and Shakhtar, in which he has left very bad feelings. “We have been getting out of order in these two matches,” the man from Egara repeated over and over again.
Barça receives the Vitorian team in Montjuïc just before the national team break, more obligatory than ever to prevent the two weeks without competition from becoming eternal. “We are looking forward to rediscovering our game, lately we have not been in good shape and we have to regain order while being more faithful than ever to our identity,” Xavi reiterated.
The Barça coach has not tired of going around and around the same concept in the face of the avalanche of questions about Barcelona's poor play. In fact, at some point he has hinted that there could be significant changes against Alavés. “It is time to tweak things and propose variants. It is the time for the coach but also for the footballers, for them to react and take a step forward,” he noted. “We are not going to invent anything either, we have to be faithful to our identity and recover the positional game, the order,” he mentioned again.
During the last few days, especially after the defeat against Shakhtar, a possible mental block of the Barça players has been put on the table to explain their poor performances. Although Xavi does not fully share it, despite having been the one who put the concept on the table: “Everything comes because we are not organized like before on the field. The problem is more football than mental. We are clear about what we owe and we have to improve.”
Despite everything that has been written and said since the horrendous game that the Blaugrana completed in Hamburg, the extensive experience that Xavi has in his career has allowed him to be more than calm. “You have beaten me all my life and you get used to it, you almost become immune. But the reality is that we are in a moment in which we have to accept criticism, we have played two bad games,” the coach concluded.
Xavi did not want to delve too deeply into the names of his team but confirmed that the wanted Frenkie de Jong would reappear against Rayo Vallecano, after the break, and that facing the duel against Alavés Pedri is already "one hundred percent."
Minutes before his appearance, as usual, the Barça coach facilitated the call for the match against Alavés. In it, the absences of the injured Sergi Roberto and Frenkie de Jong stand out, and that of the suspended Gavi, who saw his fifth yellow card against Real Sociedad.
