Xavi gets tough: Basic hotels, communal meals and early arrivals... What's more?

Xavi has already begun to set in place the deep structural changes he has long planned to make on and off the pitch at the Nou Camp.

The most visible immediate changes have been with the team — in Xavi’s first three games in charge Barcelona have been playing with more confidence and intensity, pressing higher and harder, taking more risks, breaking forward with more players.

The doom and gloom that surrounded the Catalan club through the final stages of Josep Maria Bartomeu’s disastrous presidency has also been replaced by a wave of positivity and optimism — a feeling that despite the club’s huge debts and unbalanced squad they have turned a corner.

That feeling is also shared by Xavi. “Xavi is the most excited of everyone,” a source who knows him well tells The Athletic. “This is a dream he has been working towards for a long time. He is very convinced that everything will go well — he and his staff.”

But Xavi and everyone else around the Nou Camp know that such optimism will only go so far — he has just begun to take the first steps in what could be a long and winding journey back to the top.

Xavi’s first public statements as Barcelona coach were a surprise for some who thought they knew him as a playmaker-philosopher mostly interested in complicated team tactics and perfect pitch surfaces. At his presentation he sounded a lot like an old-school British manager complaining that standards around the team had slipped since his days as a player, but making clear that nothing but maximum commitment and discipline would now be allowed.

“In order to be able to compete, we need to have order,” Xavi said at his first press conference. “It is not about being hard, but about order and rules, and the rules must be followed. When I have had rules in the dressing room, things have gone well. When the rules were not followed, things didn’t go so well.”

Again, the cliche might be that traditional fans and pundits would have also wanted to hear Xavi talk about Johan Cruyff’s legacy and the difference between a No 6 and a No 8 in his favoured 4-3-3 system. But his call for more discipline around the squad was widely welcomed by socios who shared this idea that the players needed a stern talking to.

“Xavi is very clever, and he knows Barcelona perfectly, what he has to do and say so that the fans are happy,” says one senior socio. “He has to come here and say there are new rules and nobody will get away with anything any more. He knows the fans have the feeling that the team did not work as hard as they should have, which is true.”

The next day came a list of 10 new rules that players have to follow, including players having to arrive 90 minutes before all training sessions start (instead of 60 minutes under predecessor Ronald Koeman) and making it compulsory for players to eat together at the training ground (instead of optional). Fines for misbehaviour, which had been phased out since Xavi’s time as a player with previous managers having relied on the player’s own sense of personal responsibility, were reintroduced. As were bans on unauthorised trips for personal business or participation in any sports or activities that involve a risk of injury.

This again went down well with many observers. Gerard Pique was pictured in the Spanish media surfing with his family during last September’s international break, while earlier this month young midfielder Riqui Puig was spotted using an electric scooter on a city-centre pavement. Both incidents appeared to go against best practice for professional athletes during the season, but neither faced action from the club.

There was no surprise over the first player to have problems with the new tighter regime — Ousmane Dembele was fined an undisclosed amount for arriving three minutes late to the training ground on the Friday of Xavi’s first week.

Others moved quickly to adapt to the new circumstances. Pique cancelled a scheduled TV appearance to promote the Davis Cup, one of his many outside business interests, which would have involved a day away in Madrid while he was recovering from a calf injury.

The defender had previously explained how he can combine his other activities with being a professional footballer, including admitting he flew to the USA in 2019 for a business trip without coach Ernesto Valverde’s permission. But now a source who knows him said he had decided himself to “cancel some commitments and to prioritise things”. The same source pointed out that other players had also cancelled or postponed sponsors’ events these last weeks, although without the same spotlight that Pique always attracts.

Once training starts, there has also been a new, more intense feel to the sessions, now led by the team’s new physical preparation specialist Ivan Torres. A childhood friend of Xavi in the Catalan town of Terrassa, Torres has previously worked as fitness coach at Bahrain’s Olympic side, AEK Larnaca and Leeds United before joining Xavi at Al-Sadd.

There have been lighter moments as Torres has introduced some new games and activities during the warm-up (not all ball-based), but there is also a clear push to improve the player’s fitness levels. That Barca’s players have not trained as hard as those at other clubs has become accepted wisdom over recent seasons, with many stories shared of sessions being cut short or designed not to overly tax veteran players, including Lionel Messi, during the regimes of Valverde, Quique Setien and Koeman.

“There was a relaxation of the standards,” says a source close to various Barca players. “The minimum at all clubs is an internal disciplinary code which the players know and respect. That is essential, and Xavi has to mark out that line. Talent on its own is not enough, and even less in today’s football; the day-to-day work is key.”

Xavi appears well aware of this general idea and he and his staff have been very energetic and visible around the training ground, with Barca’s communications department also sharing lots of photos and videos on social media of group one-on-one chats.

“They are right on top of everyone, those who are playing, and those who are not,” says a source who knows Xavi. “Changes were needed and there will be changes made. He has insisted a lot on that message (from his press conference), that when rules are followed things go well, when they are not followed control and commitment are lost.”

As a player, Xavi always had strong opinions and personal standards but did not look for open confrontation with team-mates, preferring to lead by example. Some have now wondered whether he will have the character to take on former team-mates, and friends, should it be required to enforce the new code of conduct.

“At Al-Sadd he went from team-mate to coach in one day,” says the source. “There are no doubts that Xavi has the personality and capability to make tough decisions. Some will be more popular than others, but these decisions have to be made. You cannot leave everyone happy.”

Another big sign of Xavi’s new tighter regime came with the reintroduction of the policy of calling the players together to a hotel before home games. The practice of spending the day together at a hotel had been common during Guardiola’s time as coach, but was phased out under Luis Enrique and not continued by Valverde, Setien or Koeman.

The hotel chosen for the team to meet, eat together, rest in their rooms and then gather for the pre-game team talk was also a sign of the times around the club. Previously favoured was the Princesa Sofia, a five-star hotel close to the stadium which is also popular with players’ families and top agents, and where Real Madrid stay when they come to the city.

For the recent Espanyol and Benfica home games, Barca have used the NH Constanza, a chain more popular with business travellers (and journalists on a budget, The Athletic knows well). This was another message in itself for the players — no more lenience, no more pampering. It was now about the bare essentials, working hard and earning every crumb. Those who do not like this idea, or still want an easy ride, will be told to get off.

None of what Xavi put in place during his first fortnight in the job has been thought up on the spot, with his time away in Qatar at Al-Sadd being used to work on ideas that are ready to roll out from day one.

“What he was doing in Qatar was to prepare for Barcelona,” says the source who knows Xavi. “Experimenting, looking at different ways of doing things, what role would each staff member have. They had their objectives at Al-Sadd, but the final objective was to be ready to come back to Barca.”

This includes Xavi’s two assistants — his brother Oscar Hernandez and Sergio Alegre; fitness coach Torres, physiotherapist Carlos Nogueira, and analysts David Prats, Sergio Garcia and Toni Lobo. The only staff member to continue from Koeman’s regime is goalkeeping coach Jose Ramon de la Fuente, who has been working with Barca’s goalkeepers since Xavi was still in the first team.

All of these have very pure “Barca DNA” — although the source who knows Xavi denies that he will be too idealistic or purist in his philosophy.

“Cruyff’s philosophy is very good, but Cruyff’s way of working might not work too well in today’s football,” says the source. “Everything has changed a lot at the top level in the last 10 years. And these people are younger but they are very, very prepared and experienced, aware of what is going on at the top level outside — tactically, technically, technologically.”

The first immediate change made was sacking first-team physio Juanjo Brau and fitness coach Albert Roca. Xavi knew both Brau and Roca as they were also at the club during his time as a player, but had already decided they were leaving, with his Al-Sadd staff Nogueira and Torres taking over their roles with immediate effect.

That decision was widely welcomed due to the run of injuries and fitness issues that have hampered the squad in recent months and years. Barca have had 23 injuries this season, 17 of them muscle problems, a situation which was highlighted when all of Ansu Fati, Eric Garcia and Nico Gonzalez limped off in the 3-3 draw at Celta on the day after Xavi’s return was confirmed.

It has also become common for players to suffer setbacks during their recoveries, for instance Dembele and Pedri recently, which was a source of tension between Koeman and club medical staff. Pedri’s situation was especially concerning — the teenager was overplayed by club and country last season — and he unsurprisingly suffered an injury early this term and is now not going to play again until 2022.

Solving these issues is a clear focus for the new regime, especially as Xavi needs his players to be as fit as possible given the high pressing, high energy, swarming game he wants to play.

Others who may soon return to the Nou Camp include Ricard Pruna and Ramon Cugat, two more medical professionals who left in recent years after disagreements with the previous club hierarchy. Pruna has since worked with Pique’s third-tier club FC Andorra and is currently contracted to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.

Xavi told a press conference last week that Pruna “was close to returning” as “I want to surround myself with people who are trustworthy and loyal”. A complicating factor is that the club’s current head of medical services is Ramon Canal, who was first brought into the club by Laporta during the president’s first term. Canal is likely to now leave as soon as Pruna can get back from the UAE. It’s another sign of Xavi using his power and prestige to push through changes that none of Valverde, Setien or Koeman could achieve.

Other areas of the club for which structural changes are planned include data analysis and a source told The Athletic last week that some data analysts have already left, with replacements in mind to fill roles in both opposition and transfer target analysis.

Already a dozen staff members across different areas of the club have left or been reassigned. Barca’s financial problems, and the very political nature of everything around the club, means that implementing everything planned will be difficult and take time. However the immediate deep changes to the very top of the medical department show that Laporta has ceded more power to the first-team coach than is usually the case.

Another famous name in the Barca family who had worked on plans with previous presidential candidate Victor Font was Jordi Cruyff, who returned to Barcelona last summer as head of international scouting. Cruyff Junior has kept a low profile during his first four months back while others, like sporting vice-president Rafael Yuste and sporting director Mateu Alemany, were much more visibly influential in the club’s transfer planning.

Xavi’s arrival as coach has led to a new arrangement within the club’s transfer decision-making system. Most obviously, technical secretary Ramon Planes left almost immediately, having surprisingly been kept on by Laporta despite being associated with transfer policy under Bartomeu. The idea now — Xavi’s idea at least — is for the coach to have much more power, along with Cruyff.

“Within the restructuring which Barca need, the sintonia (wavelength) between Xavi and Jordi is going to be really vital,” says a source. “They are the people who know football so they should be making the football decisions. They share a vision of football, and a vision of the club. But they will need the club to execute that vision.”

Laporta has his own ideas about transfer matters — even during the decade between his presidencies he maintained relationships with many of European football’s top agents. One of Europe’s top dealmakers told The Athletic during last winter’s presidential campaign that “Laporta is one of my closest friends in football”.

The club’s sporting vice-president Yuste has become a visible and vocal presence despite having no football background. “Yuste knows as much about football as the average fan,” says one source who has listened to his ideas. Alemany does have deep knowledge of the industry from his time as Mallorca president and Valencia director-general, and has the primary power to negotiate with other clubs and agents, under budgetary constraints that are discussed with the club’s new chief executive Ferran Reverter.

So many voices with an input into transfer policy mean that Barca are all the time being linked with dozens of potential new signings, even though everybody knows they have very little money to spend. Some of the names mentioned since Xavi returned include Ferran Torres, Raheem Sterling, Thiago Alcantara, Cesar Azpilicueta, Saul Niguez, Hakim Ziyech, Timo Werner, Red Bull’s Salzburg winger Karim Adeyemi, Basel forward Arthur Cabral and even Al-Sadd’s Algerian striker Baghdad Bounedjah.

“Barca is a club where news comes out every day, of every type, one thing is said, then the opposite,” says a source. Other sources close to some of those potential targets say their clients still see Barca as a very attractive place to play — an opportunity for their careers — but also doubt whether the Catalan club has the finances to match the terms at their current clubs or other potential suitors.

Adding quality and filling gaps in what is a very unbalanced squad will not be easy, particularly as everyone knows Barca are €1.3 billion in debt, and also curtailed by La Liga’s FFP rules. Xavi has made clear he still sees it possible to improve the options available to him and has already pushed through the return of his former team-mate Dani Alves, now 38, who Laporta and Alemany had previously doubted was worth resigning even after the Brazilian offered to play for the minimum salary allowed — €155,000 a year.

“Xavi is more than a coach, he has come in as a saviour,” says a source. “Within the financial limitations of the club, he will have the ability to put his squad together. Look at Alves — that is clearly his signing, the club had rejected him coming back.”

Although Alemany has said there is currently “zero room” to add any new players in January, Xavi is still keen for more tweaks to the squad to be made.

“Xavi wants to see everyone up close, to work with them day-to-day,” says the source who knows him. “Then he will go hand-in-hand with the club and see what reinforcements are possible. In two, three weeks, is when it will be time to talk, to see what is needed. But if the finances say you cannot do it, you cannot do it.”

A lot of hope and expectation is placed in Barca’s new generation of homegrown youngsters — Ansu Fati, Gavi, Nico Gonzalez, as well as Pedri and Ronald Araujo. The club itself has also been quick to jump on this positive story, regularly using the hashtag #DreamTeen on social media.

Xavi showed faith in the club’s La Masia youth system by handing a debut to 17-year-old Ilias Akhomach in his first La Liga game as coach. In all, Barca have used 10 players aged 21 or younger this season, according to Opta, with only two clubs across Europe’s top five leagues having used more. There has also been a clear preference for players who have come through the club’s youth system, and the style of play has also been much more recognisably “Barca DNA” than the tactics and systems used by Koeman.

This production line to the first team has stuttered in recent years, especially during Bartomeu’s time as president, but getting it working again is another firm pillar in Xavi’s plans. Now overseeing La Masia is Albert Capellas, who was a Barca B coach when Xavi passed through in the late 1990s. Capellas has since worked with Cruyff in Israel and China and was Denmark’s Under-21 international manager before being brought back into Barca by Laporta last summer.

Whenever asked, Xavi has praised the potential of the club’s emerging kids, while also making it clear that other more senior dressing room members should bear the responsibility for sorting out the team’s current woes. This includes the veteran Catalan club captains, and others supposed to be around the peak of their careers such as Frenkie de Jong, Memphis Depay and Marc-Andre ter Stegen.

Maybe the most interesting task over the coming weeks will be to see who they can move out to raise funds. Everybody knows which players would ideally be sold — Philippe Coutinho, Neto, Samuel Umtiti, Martin Braithwaite, Clement Lenglet, Sergi Roberto — but it has been so far impossible to find buyers, or even clubs to take them on loan and pay their wages. Maybe Newcastle or another club desperate to spend money on established names might help out, but even still persuading a player to make that move will be a challenge.

Optimists have pushed the idea of targeting high-profile players who are not playing regularly elsewhere and might be available on loan for six to 18 months. However, those more familiar with Xavi’s thinking say more medium- to long-term thinking is required, and young players who can fill particular weak spots in the squad are more likely to be targeted for January. “Xavi’s way of playing really needs wingers and there are not many in the squad,” says one source.

During his first weeks in the job, Xavi has been careful not to mention the names of any potential targets. But he has not been shy about calling for the club to renew Dembele’s contract, and make sure he does not leave when his current deal ends in June. This is clearly because Xavi wants talented and pacy wide players, but is another example of how he feels comfortable publicly using his power to push for things he wants that his bosses may not agree with.

Close observers say that the January window, and especially next summer, will show whether Laporta and other directors really are willing to give Xavi (and Cruyff and other allies) the power to shape the squad.

“For sure Xavi will have more margin (over transfers), just by being Xavi,” says one source. “But we will see what happens with the results over the medium term. If at the end of the season the team has not improved significantly, Xavi might see his powers curtailed. If the season goes really well, then Xavi will have freer rein to make the decisions.”

Results so far have been pretty good, especially compared with the end under Koeman, with two wins and a draw in Xavi’s first three games. Performances have been mixed though — they have been fortunate with some penalty decisions going their way, and could well have lost all three games had Espanyol, Benfica and Villarreal taken more of their many chances.

The initial burst of adrenaline and positivity due to Xavi’s return has clearly helped, but a sustained improvement is going to be required to ensure Champions League qualification for next term. The situation is also critical in this year’s Champions League, with the team likely needing to win at Bayern Munich on December 8 to avoid an embarrassing and historic drop to the Europa League.

Meanwhile, Xavi and those he trusts will continue to restructure behind the scenes, with more changes in strategy and personnel likely over the coming weeks across different departments. The evidence of his first three weeks is that he has a clear idea of the direction he wants to take the squad and the club. The question now is whether Laporta and other powers at the Nou Camp are happy to cede power to those they feel they beat in an election less than 12 months ago. The winning regime’s decision to stick with Koeman last summer backfired and meant they had to swallow their pride, call Xavi and give him the power he asked for.

“Xavi was not Laporta’s choice for coach due to the Font connection, but he had to turn to him due to the disaster with Koeman,” says a source. “Now once you sign him, then you have to be behind 100 per cent from day one. Xavi now can implement what he has long planned to do.”