Xavi Hernández says that his team is maturing through chestnuts. But the Egarense coach is also having to find himself in difficult situations on the Camp Nou bench. The coach is about to see how his Barça is eliminated from the Champions League for the second season in a row in the group stage while in the League, after regaining the lead 90 games later, he has already lost his mind.
The construction of a football project is rarely linear and progressive, but there are setbacks, defeats and moments of doubt. Although the truth is that it seemed that the worst for Xavi had already happened last season, when he arrived with Barcelona off the hook, ninth, and had to fight to qualify for the Champions League and even managed to re-enlist him to dream of the League. But, despite the winter signings – only Ferran Torres remains – and the 160 million invested this summer, the project is still halfway done.
“You don’t have to burn everything down”, defended Sergi Roberto after the defeat at the Bernabeu, the first in this championship. However, Xavi’s Barcelona don’t get the numbers. The egarense loses the comparisons with the last seven technicians of Can Barça. Sunday’s classic was his 50th game and the former midfielder has won 28, drawn 11 and lost 11.
These figures are very similar to those of Rijkaard in his first year, but in 2003-04 he lost one game less. The Dutchman, with Xavi on the field, needed two seasons to win the League and three to reach the final in Paris and win the second Champions League in the club’s history.
The particularity of Xavi is that the start of Koeman, the man he came to replace in November 2021, was better. Koeman scored 33 victories, five more than Terrassa. Guardiola, Tito Vilanova and Luis Enrique, who broke records, are obviously out of reach right now.
While Tata Martino also surpasses him by far. We must not forget that all of them had a Leo Messi at a high level. The Argentine coach, without going any further, signed the best start in history with 13 wins and a draw in the League. Xavi, who could never count on the ten, clings to Dembélé and Raphinha to connect with Lewandowski.
In the case of Xavi, the loss of consistency in the game is surprising when he had recovered in the first few months. The coach managed to compete and beat the big rivals, even in the opposite field (4-2 at Atlético, 1-4 at Valencia, 2-4 at Napoli, 1-2 at Galatasaray, 0-4 at Madrid ). Instead, in this start the inferiority and mental weakness that seemed forgotten is repeated, with zero victories in four level games: 2-0 in Munich, 0-1 in Milan, 3-3 against Inter and 1-3 in the Bernabéu.
Another coach who needed time to consolidate and gain momentum to form the dream team was Johan Cruyff, who won 31 games in his first 50 games and drew a draw in 13. Johan only lost six but he also already had a trophy, the Cup Winners’ Cup. 1989, which beat Sampdoria in Bern (2-0).
Also Van Gaal in his first campaign, 97-98, (31 wins) and Bobby Robson in his only campaign, 96-97 (30 wins) improve Xavi’s records, with the addition that both the Dutch and the English they made a very good final sprint to win two titles each.
The only coaches, with a minimum of 50 games on the bench, who do not reach 50% of games won are Llorenç Serra Ferrer and Carles Rexach. The Mallorcan, who started but did not finish the 2000-01 campaign, stayed at 24, the same as Charly, who needed three stages to reach fifty duels.
