‘It’s the moment’: Xavi plays down Guardiola comparison at Barcelona

08-Nov-2021 17:35:48 | The Guardian

The club president, Joan Laporta, says the new head coach has arrived at ‘the moment in which Barça most needed him’

At last, the time was right and the place was too. Xavi Hernández returned to Barcelona as manager and revealed that not only had he twice turned the job down previously – first because he didn’t feel ready and then because he didn’t trust the previous administration or the chaotic situation in which the club found itself – but that he had also passed up the opportunity to work with the Brazilian national team under Tite in order to head home. That, he said, was what moved him.

“It’s the moment,” Xavi said, but he knows it is not an easy one. A total of 9,422 people turned out to see him take charge of a club that is ninth in La Liga, 11 points off the top, 10 points behind rivals Real Madrid, and level with city neighbours Espanyol, the club against whom he will make his managerial debut and one that have never finished above Barcelona. A club that is on the edge of European elimination, and this at a club where he said that “a draw is a defeat” and “a 1-0 win in the 90th minute isn’t acceptable.”