Xavi’s biggest challenge is to bring Barcelona back to competitiveness.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, BARCELONA – As a creative midfielder of the world, Xavi Hernandez can claim to be able to show off a fantastic game of entertaining football. Since replacing Ronald Koeman as coach Barcelona Earlier this month, Xavi actually made various changes to the team’s rules.
This includes off the court rules, which cover everything from the daily routine on the training ground to rest, eating and using social media. The point of course is that habit will force players to concentrate on the pitch. Ahead of the game against Benfica in the Champions League, Xavi was sure that the actions he would take for his team would be a must.
The match will also be an arena of revenge Barça against Benfica, a team from Portugal. Because, during the first meeting, Barça lost 0-3 at the opponent’s seat on September 30, 2021.
The defeat was nothing new or surprising. It was just the latest defeat in a long string of heavy losses that La Blaugrana have suffered since 2017 in the Champions League.
At that time, Barça had been humiliated 0-4 and 1-4 against Paris Saint-Germain (PSG). In addition, he was beaten 0-3 by Juventus twice, 0-3 against AS Roma, 0-4 against Liverpool and 2-8 and 0-3 against Bayern Munich.
It has been too long since Barcelona suffered a humiliating defeat to their rivals in the Blue Continent competition. The Blaugrana usually don’t find the best form and the best compact play like in the days of tiki-taka football.
Reported BBC SportsTuesday (11/23) is hardly an easy task. Even for club legend Xavi, who won 25 trophies in 17 years as a Camp Nou player.
Barcelona are currently sixth in the La Spanish league 2021/2022, having not won a European title since 2015, are struggling to qualify for the knockout stages of the Champions League, and are severely constrained by a lack of resources.
As a result, the biggest challenge Xavi is to make his team physically competitive. In addition, he knows that discipline on the field begins with discipline off the field. An element that is hardly visible in Barça’s locker room in recent years.
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