The Key Elements Behind Xavi’s Success And Revolution At FC Barcelona

FC Barcelona legend Xavi Hernandez had his work cut out for him when taking over the reins from Ronald Koeman as head coach mid-season.

With the Blaugrana almost languishing in mid-table, the former midfielder has reversed their fortunes and now has them in pole position for Champions League qualification, through to the last 16 of the Europa League and scoring goals for fun.

On Saturday morning, both of Catalonia’s main newspapers Sport and Mundo Deportivo have revealed the key elements behind the 41-year-old’s success in the dugout thus far, which are as follows:

Positional play

Reared on the ‘juego de posicion’ himself in the La Masia academy, Xavi’s game boils down to positional play. Barca’s players are encouraged to have the ball for as long as possible and advance with it. They must recover it quickly when they don’t, while attacking the spaces whenever they do.

Xavi’s staff had to spend extra time with the players that hadn’t mastered the concept yet when it was first implemented, and essentially Xavi wants his men to understand the game in the way that he sees it.

Tactics and man management

Xavi and his two assistants – brother Oscar and Sergio Alegre – prepare group exercises in training and divide players by lines to explore specific facets of defense, midfield and attack.

When the trio first arrived, the likes of Sergino Dest and Frenkie de Jong were strugging to the extent that rumors spread they would be sold. Thanks to excellent man-management, however, the Netherlands-born pair have reversed their fortunes and are now starters again, with Xavi also taking Ousmane Dembele under his wing and extracting top form from the Frenchman despite his contract renewal dispute.

Physical preparation

Xavi appointed Ivan Torres as his head of physical preparation, and every player now has an individual fitness plan. While Adama Traore does not need to do weight training, someone of slighter build such as Pedri might.

Torres has been strengthening the players’ weak points depending on their physical build, and the group’s data has also been recorded. It was found that the players weren’t used to the physical demands of Xavi’s preferred style of play, which meant it took time to shift the culture at the club to not worry so much about the amount of kilometers run in a match, but instead the intensity at which they are completed.

Video analysis

Sergio Garcia, David Prats and Toni Lobo are charged with watching videos of Barca’s opponents and analyzing them. On matchday, there is a list of eight to ten key points drawn up on what Xavi asks of his squad.

Matches are also thoroughly reviewed after they are played so that it can be seen what was done well and what could be improved. Once all the material has been processed, it is shared in a group and then in a personal manner to the first team.

Planned strategies

Barca do not just set up routines such as corner kick and free kick drills and plan everything while working on their ideas constantly.

The opposition and their approach are studied, such as their strengths and weaknesses so that a strategy to detain them or overcome them can be devised accordingly.

The Catalans also plan on how they can attack better by examining which kinds of spaces their rivals leave for them to exploit, and each movement on the pitch is studied, planned, anticipated and corrected if it doesn’t pull off.

Some thought it would take years due to the lack of quality in Barca’s squad and their financial woes with debts hovering around the $1.5bn mark. But with the huge amount of work the manager and his henchmen are putting into the project, the Xavi-era is already starting to bear fruit and a return to the top could take far less time than previously expected.