Key points:
- Xavi played 767 matches and dominated 25 prizes with Barca in his 17 years in the primary group.
- Discipline. Rules. Request. Penance.
These are presumably not the words you would hope to hear over and again underlined by new Barcelona mentor Xavi upon his re-visitation of his previous playing club determined to reestablish lost wonders.
As one of the best innovative ball-playing midfielders the world has seen, you may figure Xavi would show up with powerful guarantees of free-streaming, invigorating, assaulting football.
All things considered, since supplanting Ronald Koeman recently he has been in a real sense setting some hard boundaries by carrying out a progression of severe off-the-pitch rules, covering everything from ordinary preparing ground schedules to supper times and media appearances.
The aim is that these requesting propensities will prompt a comparable honing of a spotlight on the pitch. Before Tuesday’s must-win Champions League meeting with Benfica, it’s simply important to glance back at the main gathering stage game between the groups to comprehend the reason why Xavi accepts his severe measures are fundamental.
The Portuguese group won September’s gathering in Lisbon effectively, scoring with their first shot on track – something Barca’s adversaries have done on eight events this season – and continuing to wrap up a 3-0 triumph with little difficulty as Barca summoned only one exertion on objective and looked helpless against each Benfica assault.
The absolute most stressing thing over that capitulation is that it was neither new nor astounding. It was only the most recent in a long queue of weighty losses endured by Barca beginning around 2017 in the Champions League: 0-4 and 1-4 against PSG; 0-3 against Juventus twice; 0-3 against Roma; 0-4 against Liverpool; 2-8 and 0-3 against Bayern Munich.
For a long time, they have been too simple to even think about playing against, regularly unfit to track down a minimized shape and leaving huge openings in the field for efficient rivals to easily take advantage of.
