Inside Xavi's bizarre Barcelona U-turn
The Athletic FC Podcast
The Athletic
4.0 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 1 May 2024
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Back in January, Xavi announced he would be stepping down as Barcelona boss at the end of the season, citing the role as a “cruel job” that “wears you down”.
But last week, he and Barca changed their minds - yet another twist in a rollercoaster season for the Catalans.
So, why did Barca perform a dramatic U-turn on Xavi’s future?
How strong is his position now?
And can Xavi be backed in this summer’s transfer market to the level he now expects?
Host: Ayo Akinwolere
With: Pol Ballús and Tomás Hill López-Menchero
Producer: Mike Stavrou
Executive Producer: Adey Moorhead
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Back in January, Javi announced he would be stepping down as Barcelona boss at the end of the season, |
| 0:10.4 | citing the role as a cruel job that wears you down. But last week, he and Barsa changed their minds, |
| 0:17.9 | yet another twist in a roller coaster season for the Catalans. So why did |
| 0:22.6 | Barsa perform a dramatic U-turn on Javi's future? How stronger position is he in now? And can |
| 0:30.0 | Javi be backed in this summer's transfer market to the level he now expects? I'm Ayahu Akim Alari. |
| 0:36.9 | Welcome to the Athletic FC podcast. |
| 0:52.2 | All right, with us today, we have the Athletics Thomas Hill, Lopez Mencherro, and also our Barcelona writer, Paul Belus, as well. |
| 0:57.1 | Paul, you've written a big piece on The Athletic where you share details of the three key meetings that resorted in the U-turn on Javi's future, not least the emotional chat at Juan Leporte's house. |
| 1:08.5 | Can you give us a summary of how it all panned out? |
| 1:11.1 | I'm not going to lie, it all sounds pretty bizarre. |
| 1:14.5 | It is actually like really, really bizarre and weird. |
| 1:17.3 | It's something that in many ways like we did expect here in Barcelona |
| 1:21.8 | because it was something that we could sense like from club sources |
| 1:26.1 | when we tried to talk to them in terms of like, who were they looking at as their next manager. They were like really calm and really chill. Like, we think that Chavi is going to reconsider and that he's going to say and that he's going to be the best option that we have for next season. And then like if you heard that Chabby on press conferences during the last couple of months, he wasn't being |
| 1:44.2 | too bold. He wasn't being like, look, there's no chance I'm staying next season. And then all |
| 1:48.7 | these like pointed out like or yeah, pointed towards like a potential reconsideration on |
| 1:53.8 | like his decision to stay. But what we didn't expect was what happened last Wednesday, basically, |
| 1:59.2 | which is this sort of like late night meetings, |
| 2:02.9 | three, like a board meeting in the morning |
| 2:06.2 | with a lot of people like asking for Chavi, like, to be, |
| 2:09.7 | not sacked, but like just not to count on him for next season. |
| 2:12.6 | And then like Chavi meeting with Deco in an emergency meeting |
... |
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