Barcelona to replace Luis Enrique with Xavi, suggest reports

What’s the Story

After Luis Enrique’s shock resignation post-Barcelona’s thrashing of Sporting Gijon at the Camp Nou a couple of days back, the Catalan giants have been on the lookout for potential candidates. In view of this, La Gazetta dello Sport reports that the club are interested in bringing Xavi Hernandez back to the club as coach as they are still undecided about the other candidates

In case you didn’t know

You already know all about Luis Enrique’s resignation, and in case you missed it, you can read the full story here: Luis Enrique to quit Barcelona at the end of the season. Meanwhile, Xavi is a legend at the club who routinely figures in the top 3 in whatever list ranks Barcelona’s most important players of all time, like this one from the ever excellent Ashwin Hanagudu: – 10 greatest Barcelona players of all time

Above, all he epitomises the “Barcelona way of playing” like no one else.

The heart of the matter

The two front-runners for the Barca job are said to be Athletic Bilbao’s technically accomplished Ernesto Valverde and Sevilla’s superstar coach Jorge Sampaoli. Although there have been many rumours linking different personalities, ranging from Arsene Wenger to Mauricio Pochettino to even Ronald Koeman and Laurent Blanc to the job, this one with Xavi seems to have the most credibility.

Seeing as the majority of the complaints regarding Enrique’s reign revolved around the lack of ‘philosophy’ in his playing style and the loss of the team’s identity of ‘Mes que un club’, appointing the fiercly proud Catalan would be seen as the right move by most.

What next?

The Catalan, who is currently coaching the Qatar U-23 team is the most unencumbered (with Valverde negotiating with Athletic Club for a new contract and Sampaoli having a 1.5 million release clause in his Sevilla contract) and is also the one most cnnected with Barcelona’s philosophy. This means that any realistic move to target him would have a high success rate, and considering the chemistry he shares with both the club’s captain Andres Iniesta, and the club’s most influential voice Lionel Messi, he should be a great fit in the dressing room and the training pitch.

Sportskeeda’s Take

Xavi may be a touch too inexperienced to guide Barcelona right away. While there is no doubt that one day he would make a great coach for his beloved hometown club, it would be ideal if he were to be given a couple of years in charge of the youth team at first – just like they did with another legend Pep Guardiola, and like their arch-rivals Real Madrid did with one of their club’s all time legends, Zinedine Zidane.

Keeping that in mind, we don’t feel Xavi could step up to the hot seat this summer, but a couple of years down the line... it could be a distinct possibility