He said the injury to Gavi was a “dagger in the heart,” and he’s not wrong. He has bemoaned a lack of intensity, silly mistakes, the tension they feel: “We need to play freer,” he said. After the Almeria game he said the first-half display had been “unacceptable” and he tore into his players, their attitude. There was something simple too many of them didn’t do: run. That kind of message doesn’t always go down well, and is sometimes a risky last resort. But Pep Guardiola backed him: “If they really believe in the coach, it’s up to the players, now,” the Manchester City manager said, and Xavi revealed that he had messaged him to say thanks.
“We lack intensity this year,” Kounde admitted. After the Las Palmas win, Ilkay Gundogan said that he couldn’t work out why it was this way, why they seemed to need to be behind to react. That day, Xavi kept making the same gesture, pleading for the same, fairly simple pass, dinked over the defence. It was particularly frustrating for him, he said afterwards, because that was a pass he did so well as a player.
After the Unionistas game he said: “Sometimes I pull my hair out because we don’t do the right thing.” All of those things, and there are a lot of them, are true, the list of issues as long as the wait for Gavi to reappear.
There are individual players miles off their previous level — Lewandowski, Kounde, Balde, even Ronald Araujo stands out — and there have been key absentees: not just Gavi, the player who leads the press, but Pedri too. And Marc-Andre Ter Stegen of course. João Félix was fleeting, which tends to be the way. What was it Simeone said? “Anyone can play well one game.” The replacement for Sergio Busquets was Oriol Romeu at €3.5m, and Xavi soon seemed to decide that it just wasn’t the same. Just about the one consistent performer is De Jong, the man they tried to push out.
Xavi called this a team “in construction,” which was sort of true but how long can you say that for? Can you say it if you’re worse than last year? In the two years since Xavi has been there, Barcelona have signed 17 players, for €256m in fees. There has been some good business, at least on the face of it: Gundogan and Inigo Martinez for free. And plenty of palanca-related jiggery-pokery, registration battles, lots of short-term fixes, players brought in on criteria that is not always the coach’s.
Of the 17 that they used in the two Super Cup games last year, 11 had gone by the time they played this year’s. Xavi said this was one of the most difficult moments, economically, in their history — and that was true, too.
But the most striking thing he has said is that Barcelona have played well, and he says it after almost every game. Which has become a little disconcerting, because there’s little real evidence of it. Before the Super Cup final, he talked about Johan Cruyff, the inspiration for it all. He talks about DNA, their genetic makeup. Xavi is the great ideologue, but watch his team and there’s not that much sign of that ideology. On Thursday, the Unionistas coach praised Xavi for having respected his team.
“He showed that he knew who we are,” Ponz said. Who Barcelona are is another question.
And all the while the pressure builds, at a place always liable to explode, where there are fault lines. This week, the president Joan Laporta visited the players, publicly. “Together we’re strong; he’s the most optimistic of all of us,” were Xavi’s words. But while the picture of them — published by the club, designed to be consumed — was supposed to express unity, action, it looked more like a bunch naughty school kids in a class room when the inspector comes, the teacher’s authority undermined. If it sought a reaction, it didn’t get it. Life carried on the same.
“We’re closer to success than defeat,” Xavi insisted, but 24 hours later, they were another early goal down in Salamanca. “We suffered,” Xavi said later, which would have been bad enough but no one was even that surprised.
