It´s been 6 months since Hansi Flick inherited a talented FC Barcelona team from an overrated, out-of-his-league Xavi Hernandez. He´s taken essentially the same group of players Xavi was gifted and turned them into a team looking at a possible a treble. At this time last year Xavi was miserable on the sidelines-pouting, complaining, and crying over anything you could imagine. Too hot (you´re in Spain Xavi), grass too long, game too early, too many injuries, no transfer backing, referees out to get Barca, bla bla bla. He became a Spanish media laughingstock (outside Catalunya) and unfortunately damaged his legacy as one of the greatest Spanish midfielders of all time. Nobody can or will ever take that away from him, but as Flick is showing, Xavi wasn´t anywhere close to prepared to take on FC Barcelona.
Let´s be honest, he came from Qatar, where the 1st division is equivalent to the 4th in Spain. Maybe the 5th. The biggest problem, aside from Joan Laporta hiring him, was him winning La Liga in his first season. Smoke and mirrors. David Copperfield-like stuff. Some thought he was doing a good job, but the cracks were there. Robert Lewandowski won that title for Barca. Period. He scored 33 goals and in Messi-like fashion saved Barca that season. An average Real Madrid team more focused on winning the Champions League rather than La Liga also helped. At the start of his second season the smoke began to fade. Mirrors began to fog. By November, it was clear Xavi needed to go away. Back to Qatar. Spanish 3rd division. MLS. Anywhere but Barca. Aside from the lack of results, his actions and excuses were becoming an embarrassment to the club.
His team was unfit, disorganized defensively, playing without passion or conviction, and basically took on his personality as a quitter. That´s right I said it. Remember he quit on January 27th after the defeat to Villareal? Too stressful. Too hard on his family. He loves the club too much. Etc., etc. Every excuse under the sun, but the bottom line was he quit because he wasn´t getting results. Low and behold as soon as he quit and the players knew (or thought) he was gone, they started playing freely, with passion, conviction, and a new lease on the season. And low and behold they started getting results. And what did the ultimate crybaby do then? He un-quit. Yep. All of the sudden the team was winning and he wanted back in….
Luckily for Barca fans, Xavi couldn´t get out of his own way. Behind the scenes drama and some idiotic comments to the media led Laporta to finally get rid of him. For good. The man blinded most by Xavi´s club history suddenly went from Stevie Wonder to Superman with X-ray vision. And Barca fans will be thankful that he kept his X-ray vision and hired Flick. Mark my words. Some club is going to hire Xavi in the next 6-8 months and unless that club is in Qatar, Mozambique, or Montenegro he will be exposed again.