Xavi: "Sign in January? I have asked that we not play too much"

"Barça is a crusher of people.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
20 December 2022 Tuesday 08:32
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Xavi: "Sign in January? I have asked that we not play too much"

"Barça is a crusher of people. And being a first-team coach requires a very balanced emotional state." Word of Xavi Hernández, coach of FC Barcelona to whom the World Cup break has done wonderfully. He has rested, has psyched himself up and as a football lover that he is, he has not missed practically a single World Cup match. In fact, he traveled to Qatar the first week to see, among other games, Argentina-Mexico or Spain-Germany. "I've seen almost all the games. It's been a very even World Cup. The teams have been very result-oriented. There have been surprises like Morocco or even Croatia. The fall of Spain, Germany or Brazil surprised me a lot", he reasoned in an interview with Barça TV.

Up to 17 Barcelona World Cup winners attended the call from their teams. Now little by little the coach is recovering troops. Only the finalists, the French Koundé and Dembélé, remain to join. "We have to do a kind of preseason of about two weeks to face what comes to us in this second part of the course, which is a lot. We left the leading team in the League in Pamplona against Osasuna with everything against us and that says a lot about the winning team we have now", explained Xavi.

And it is that after the premature elimination from the Champions League, the Barcelona coach values ​​​​above all the titles at stake - Cup, Spanish Super Cup, Europa League and League - champion in the latter. "We are competing well. I have high hopes. The League would give the club and the project a lot of stability," he stressed on several occasions.

The basis of his confidence is found in the template. Unlike last year, Xavi believes that he has some footballers with whom he can compete to win titles. "We are in a good moment. There is football health. It was a shame to be eliminated from the Champions League. We should have passed at least the group stage. We have made self-criticism. We lacked football maturity and then came the injuries or the referee decisions that we did not they helped. But we have to keep fighting to win titles because we have a squad for it. The club has made an effort by activating levers and now the responsibility lies mainly with me and the players", he acknowledged.

That squad includes names like Robert Lewandowski, whom Xavi defined as "a leader on and off the pitch that the team needed a lot." Also to his beloved Ousmane Dembélé, "a player who makes a difference every game or two. He must improve his decision-making because he goes at 200 km/h and sometimes he doesn't see the option of passing the ball, but I love him very much. I have always I trusted him. He has never cheated on me. He said he wanted to stay and he stayed," he reasoned. In his list of praise, he reserved the best for Pedri and Gavi. "They are better than Iniesta and me at 20 years old," he stressed. Also for Ansu Fati. "We wanted to make a more progressive process with him and he has always worked with a good attitude. Now he should be important and with Balde there is a lateral for 15 years," he stressed.

Barcelona faces the second part of the course without one of its captains, Gerard Piqué. Even so, the technician does not see the need for too many changes in this winter market. "We have four central defenders and Marcos Alonso or Frenkie who can adapt. I have told Mateu Alemany not to touch the squad too much now. We have a spectacular group. We don't know if we will be able to incorporate due to fair play but we are happy. For attitude and solidarity will not be" he sentenced.