Xavi Hernández

T

Titan98

Active member
Temptation said:
@jamrock @serghei @Messi983

🚨🗣️ Xavi on his regrets as Barça coach: "I started my coaching career at Barça with high demands for the players and the club, as the club was coming out of a period where there weren't many demands..."

"My biggest mistake was that I maintained these high standards just for a year, from the time I arrived until we won La Liga, the Super Cup. But then I stopped... Some time after that, I was able to be self-critical and I said to myself, 'What happened to me?'"

"I had lowered those high standards and the players no longer had the same attitude, the same respect, the same effort. The standards kept getting lower and lower to the point that in my last season we didn't win anything. I learned a lot from this. I had to be self-critical."
Click to expand...
Why did he lower the standards or was he simply unable to motivate the team to maintain these standards?
 
Horatio

Horatio

You're welcome
Only numpties miss the real reason behind those comments.

He’s appealing to big clubs and saying what happened in my 2nd season likely won’t happen again.
 
serghei

serghei

Senior Member
Let's see how Flick deals with the same issue Xavi spoke about. Motivating players you have is tough as hell when you lack funds to bring them strong and direct competition for their starting place.
 
Barcaman

Barcaman

Administrator
Staff member
Temptation said:
@jamrock @serghei @Messi983

🚨🗣️ Xavi on his regrets as Barça coach: "I started my coaching career at Barça with high demands for the players and the club, as the club was coming out of a period where there weren't many demands..."

"My biggest mistake was that I maintained these high standards just for a year, from the time I arrived until we won La Liga, the Super Cup. But then I stopped... Some time after that, I was able to be self-critical and I said to myself, 'What happened to me?'"

"I had lowered those high standards and the players no longer had the same attitude, the same respect, the same effort. The standards kept getting lower and lower to the point that in my last season we didn't win anything. I learned a lot from this. I had to be self-critical."
Click to expand...

Just saw it. Shots fired! :2guns:
 
Fati_Future_BallonDor

Fati_Future_BallonDor

Humble guy
Temptation said:
@jamrock @serghei @Messi983

🚨🗣️ Xavi on his regrets as Barça coach: "I started my coaching career at Barça with high demands for the players and the club, as the club was coming out of a period where there weren't many demands..."

"My biggest mistake was that I maintained these high standards just for a year, from the time I arrived until we won La Liga, the Super Cup. But then I stopped... Some time after that, I was able to be self-critical and I said to myself, 'What happened to me?'"

"I had lowered those high standards and the players no longer had the same attitude, the same respect, the same effort. The standards kept getting lower and lower to the point that in my last season we didn't win anything. I learned a lot from this. I had to be self-critical."
Click to expand...

I dont believe in lowering the standards and dont think players were less motivated but less focused, see that shit at Flick
 
BusiTheKing

BusiTheKing

Senior Member
I think it's inaccurate to describe it as a loss of motivation, what happens after a succesful season. The pressure is just different when you go into the season as title defenders. The mental burden of always having to live up to something, of measuring yourself against last season's succes, this weighs on players. Your wins don't feel the quite the same anymore, and your losses feel even worse.

Trickles down into how you play the game too. When you're a challenger, it's just easier to play with freedom and courage, to be on the front foot. It's not a dramatic contrast how we play this season compared to last, but I think there is a crucial change in the mood, even from the first game of the season. That's when you need your leaders to step up.
 
J

JamDav1982

Senior Member
To me the Barca players look motivated now and this seasons issues have been more about teams adapting to Barcas tactics better and it is on Flick to get past that.

Not easy when club lose players on eve of season that coach didnt expect and when dont even know where going to be playing at times.

Best case scenario for Barca is they settle on some 'updated' tactcis for this season, players come back from injury and the impact of playing back at Camp Nou hits like PEDs in the veins.

Xavi leaves out that he used to bitch at players from sidelines.. he lost the plot and verbally abuse them... also likes of Pedri feeling like rushed back and saying training was not the best etc.

There is more to it than saying 'plyers lost motivation' and couldnt do much to prevent it.
 
serghei

serghei

Senior Member
Only the best of the best teams during an era manage to produce back to back seasons at a steady high level, or even improve on it. Our team and squad is good, but it is not at the same level as even the top 4-5 current sides, let alone previous great Barca teams that established long dominating cycles. We are not as good on player quality and even less so on squad depth areas. We have 3-5 top class players, but the rest... pretty ordinary for the time being.

Managers can't perform miracles while having lesser means to achieve what they aspire to achieve compared to other big clubs. You are essentially fighting against teams that assembled their squad for 800m to 1 billion. Very very difficult. La Masia helps, but it is not enough to carry this fight on its own almost.

Xavi's biggest error was that he couldn't deal with it and stay positive. We will see if Flick manages to survive a bad season with no titles. On top of us being bad, Xavi also had to witness Madrid winning 2 CLs in 2022 and 2024. Very tough to take for a legend like him. At least Madrid is worse now as well.
 
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serghei

serghei

Senior Member
That being said, our best bet is to punch above our weight and develop by doing so, until hopefully several players progress and ascend a higher level. For that we need motivation, hard work, discipline, some luck, etc. And above all, the right attitude from the manager, to withstand criticism and pressure and keep the spirit going.

Very tough job. Even if you do most things right, the majority of the young players we trusted and will trust in the future will just settle at being just good. Not Barca standard.
 
P

Porque

Senior Member
Xavi was different to Flick, in that he had a season where he grinded to a LaLiga without playing particularly well.

You only need to see our EL and CDR exits in the same year to see how limited we were.

Season after grinding wasn't going to float anymore. I think board had a word that we expect to win and win playing well, and it's something that wasn't in his locker.
 
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