Barcelona announces the appointment of Xavi Hernandez as new coach | Spanish football

Xavi will travel to Catalonia this weekend. The official presentation will be at 8:00 am (GMT) next Monday, at the Camp Nou, at an event open to the Catalan fans. Then he will hold a press conference. In a video posted on Barcelona’s social networks, the former midfielder gave his first message to the audience:

“It wasn’t goodbye, it was goodbye. Camp Nou has always been my home. They are my fans, my people, the club I love the most. And now, I’m going home. See you soon, culés! Go to Barcelona! “

• See the Spanish championship table

This Saturday, against Celta de Vigo, Barcelona B coach Sergi Barguan will remain a captain on the edge of the pitch. After that, the competitions will have a break in the FIFA date. Therefore, the Xavi’s first match in Barcelona training will be only on November 20, in the derby against Espanyol, at the Camp Nou.

The main problem in the negotiations was the payment of the fine for the termination of Xavi’s contract with Al Sadd, set at five million euros. Despite the Qatari club’s statement, Barcelona officials later denied that there was any agreement to settle this dispute. This created noise between the parties.

To solve the problem once and for all, according to the newspapers “Sport” and “Mundo Deportivo”, Then Xavi and Barcelona decided to split the payment of those five million euros between them.That is 2.5 million each.

• Xavi is affected by Al Sadd’s farewell

Xavi arrives to replace Dutchman Ronald Koeman, who was sacked after losing to Rayo Vallecano. In the meantime, Who led the team was interim Sergey Bergoan. The former midfielder at the age of 41 will achieve the goal of leading the first team, which he has been around since 2015, when he left Barcelona.

at that time, He said goodbye and made it clear that he would return in another role. The Spaniard played for four years as a player at Al Sadd, then began his coaching career with the Qatar national team in mid-2019.

His first chance to take charge of Barcelona was in January last year, as a replacement for Ernesto Valverde. However, Xavi rejected the proposal because he thought it was ‘too early’.. it’s time.

Xavi is the second player to have the most games in Barcelona’s history, 767, just 11 more than record holder Lionel Messi. Between 1998 and 2015, he won 25 titles, including four copies of the Champions League and eight cups of the Spanish championship.

The former midfielder was in his third season as Al Sadd coach. In just over two years at the helm of the Qatari national team, Xavi won seven cups, all national, including a league from Qatar.

He should take the coaching staff he worked with at Al Sadd to Barcelona, ​​with seven assistants: Oscar Hernandez and Sergio Allegri as assistants, physical coach Ivan Torres, physiotherapist Carlos Nogueira, and monitors David Prats, Tony Lobo and Sergio Garcia. . Most of them have gone through the Barcelona youth categories.