Xavi Hernandez
(Xavier Hernández Creus; Terrassa, 1980) Spanish footballer belonging to the discipline of Soccer Club Barcelona from the lower categories to its consolidation in the first team. Soccer ball touch with highly technical players that imposed the so-called Dream Team of Johan CruyffHe had his hinge in this refined midfielder who protects the ball like no one else and "reads" with admirable simplicity the rhythm that the game must acquire in each phase of the game. At the end of Euro 2008, which the Spanish team won for the second time in history, he was chosen Best Player of the tournament, a distinction that rarely falls to a midfielder and that recognized his fundamental contribution. Xavi was also an essential piece in achieving Barça's "treble" (who won the League, the King's Cup and the Champions League in 2009) and in the triumph of the Spanish team in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, in the that Spain was proclaimed for the first time world champion.
His father, who was a Sabadell player, instilled in him a passion for soccer. The scouts of the Fútbol Club Barcelona followed him in several children's games in the city of Egarense at the behest of his father. Finally, at the age of eleven, he took a test and in July 1991 he entered the Masia, the residence of future Barça stars who do not come from Barcelona. Xavi immediately noticed his teacher Josep Guardiola , his current coach and key figure of the Dream Teamat the time. Looking in that mirror, his progression was so meteoric that Guardiola himself, who one day watched him from the band at a youth game, predicted to his teammates: "This one is going to retire all of us." More or less it would be. Xavi became Guardiola's natural successor, despite the fact that other excellent organizers would emerge from the quarry who were forced to leave the club, such as Cesc Fábregas or Vlikel Arteta, who compete in the English and Scottish Premier League, respectively.
His predisposition to learn things, the maturity that radiated at such a young age and his footballing quality led him to move from youth to Barca B in the 1997-1998 season, where he immediately became the "brain" of the team. A team in which Xavi not only commanded and organized, but scored goals with ease thanks to his unexpected arrivals in the area and his mastery in the launching of fouls with a barrier. Even then, despite his short stature (1.70 m) and his slight complexion (he weighs 63 kilos when he is in top form), he would be a master at driving the ball and protecting it.
In the following season he alternated his performances with the B and the first team, with which he debuted on August 18, 1998 at the hands of Dutch coach Louis Van Gaal, in a Spanish Super Cup match against Real Mallorca. He was a starter and also scored a goal. Van Gaal made his debut in the League on October 3 of that same year at the Mestalla against Valencia, which was defeated 1-3. His intermittent performances with the first team gave wings to a lowered Barça that occupied the tenth position in the table. Xavi scored a decisive goal that gave the victory to his team in the Valladolid field, and from that victory, counting more regularly on his presence, the Catalans rallied so spectacularly that they would win the 1998-1999 League. It was his second professional title,
In the 1999-2000 season, due to Guardiola's injury, Xavi consolidated in the first team. Convinced of his possibilities, his game matured exponentially. Meanwhile, his stellar performance in Nigeria led him to debut with the national team on 15 November 2000 against the Netherlands. A few years later, he would be called regularly to defend the colors of Spain. From the 2000-2001 season, and with Guardiola's departure to Italian calcium, Xavi became the undisputed starter, both with Van Gaal and with the subsequent coaches: Carles Reixach, Radomir Antic and Frank Rijkaard. At Barca, however, he would not reach his third title, the League title, until May 14, 2005, after a painful march by the team and the club through a desert of nonsense. In the summer of the same year he was proclaimed champion of the Spanish Super Cup, a title that he would renew the following year, in which in the second leg he scored a decisive goal against Real Club Español, which the Barça beat 3-0.
Usually the injuries respected him, so he was always in shape when his participation was required. It is only worth mentioning a rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament of the right knee in a training session at the Camp Nou in December 2005. That mishap cut his projection by forcing him to be absent for five months, until the end of April 2006, when reappeared against Cádiz CF That year, the Catalans won the league title and the Spanish Super Cup again. But the greatest moment of glory of that year 2006 for a team that worked like a machine (thanks to the work of Xavi and Andrés Iniesta in the core and the genius of Ronaldinho and Eto'oup front) came with the victory in the Champions League, the pending issue for Barça, which only had in its showcases that achieved by the Dream Team in 1992. Xavi, however, could not participate in the final against Arsenal FC due to his low form due to injury.
In 2007, in the Champions League match against Olympique de Lyon, played on September 19, Xavi equaled Migueli as the FC Barcelona player who had played the most games in European competitions (85). And he surpassed the legendary central defender from Ceuta on October 2 of that same year in a match against VfB Stuttgart. The difference, of course, would continue to increase. As for his matches with Barça, on November 24, 2007 and against the Spanish dean club, Recreativo de Huelva, he equaled the number of 400 official matches that Guardiola had.
But without the title of Champion of Europe of Nations of 2008, in which Xavi exploited to the maximum some qualities that he did not lavish (passes in depth to the striker with the greatest advantage and shots from outside the area), he would not have occupied the first pages of the press. In that Eurocup, played in Austria and Switzerland, the Barca midfielder, indoctrinated by Luis Aragonés , advanced his position with resounding success. He scored his first goal on June 26 against Russia. And in the final against Germany, Xavi gave the goal pass to Fernando Torres, who scored the only goal of the match. His performance in the Eurocup earned him the award for Best Player in the competition, a mention that usually falls on a striker. The media, however, agreed that it was a wise choice. In addition to this major distinction, Xavi had been awarded the best footballer of the 1998-1999 and 2004-2005 seasons by the sports magazine Don Balón, and in 1999 he had received the El País award as a revelation footballer.
If with the Spanish team he had lived one of the best moments when winning the Euro Cup, the 2008-2009 season still reserved a superior destiny for him: to be an essential part, together with Andrés Iniesta , of the organization of the FC Barcelona game in which he was without a doubt the best season in the history of the club. Barça, in fact, achieved something as unusual in world football as the "triplet", the victory in the three tournaments in which it participated: the Spanish League, the King's Cup and the Champions League. The game displayed by the team amazed everyone; of course they were the new coach (his admired Josep Guardiola) and the final emergence of Leo Messi's talent the main architects of that revolution, but such successes are not conceivable without organizers of the stature of Iniesta and Xavi himself.
The 2009-2010 season added his fifth league title to his record, after a hard-fought competition in which Soccer Club Barcelona and Real Madrid reached dizzying records both in goals and points, winning 31 of the 38 games played. Barça, who also scored the Spanish Super Cup, could not, however, revalidate their victory in the Champions League when falling in the semifinals.
At the end of the season, the 2010 World Cup in South Africa would give Xavi the last title he had yet to win. Despite the disappointing initial defeat against Switzerland, the Spanish team trained by Vicente del Bosque remained faithful to their style, and led by Xavi and his other brains midfielders (Iniesta, Xabi Alonso, Cesc Fàbegras, Sergio Busquets) chained a victory after another until defeating Germany in the semifinals and the Netherlands in the final. For the first time, after decades "without passing quarters", Spain proclaimed itself world champion.
Rather cold player in the field, his teammates praise his integrity and his ability to overcome a game that seems lost. He is not a media star, although any elite team would be delighted to have his services. But he feels so identified with his lifelong club and his fans that he has not heard the siren songs of other leagues and other clubs; He plans to retire at Barcelona, whose coach pampers him and doses for fear of injury, aligning him in key games. From the 2010-2011 season, the extraordinary goal with which Xavi opened the scoring against Madrid by Jose Mourinho will undoubtedly be remembered .