In the business world there are also stressed people (no wonder). One day, they decide to change their scene or get sick and remember that their youthful dream was to go around the world on a scooter. In the business world, we said, there are also scares – burnouts, for the experts – although rarely among those who were going to be fired (companies are already in charge of deciding for them).
Xavi says that he is leaving for the good of the club and because his body has told him enough is enough and first things first. The farewell was a bit untimely, dictated by a debacle against Villarreal that could have been a dithyrambic comeback, one of those that would have allowed the opposite of this resignation to be fueled. It doesn’t matter what’s done, chest: Xavi is not continuing, the president and the staff are staying.
Is it positive to resign as head of a team when there are five months of exams left? If FC Barcelona were a normal company, what Xavi did would have been terrible for the board of directors because these things – the departures – are communicated but kept secret, so that a replacement can be found under the best conditions. But FC Barcelona is not an ordinary company, secrets are short-lived and Xavi is of the theory that the players will improve their performance, a theory typical of the world of football, about which Xavi knows so much and one so little. From the outside, the truth is, it is difficult to imagine how this announcement could benefit the footballers, given that there is no indication that they were making their bed. On the contrary: more pressure and pointing out their performance (which perhaps is appropriate because football is theirs and salaries are theirs).
Klopp also announced in January that he would not continue at Liverpool but his case has little to do with it: the work is done, the team and the entity are functioning and no one would have fired him on June 30. It is not a criticism of Xavi nor a desire to crush an FC Barcelona legend, but we will agree that the formula of secretly agreeing to leave with the club would have been better for the remainder of the season.
And the players? Here is the problem. It’s good that they have lunch together and conspire – that’s saying something – but it’s rare that footballers think about the club, the fans and the coach before they think about themselves and their circumstances. They tend to be selfish, very selfish. And in this template made by improvisation and scraps, illustrious veterans, very veterans, and illustrious youth, very youthful, coincide. With a coach who will be professional until the last day but is a lame duck from today, we will have to see if the egos unite or the egos take every man for himself (that would be his thing).
