Xavi’s comments about his time at Barcelona are the most direct admission he’s made since leaving the club. A year after his dismissal, the former coach acknowledged that he lowered the level of demand on the squad in his second season, and that this shift triggered the dip in performance that ended without trophies.
He recognized it with a kind of honesty you rarely hear from top-level coaches. “I started my career as Barça’s coach with high demands for the players and the club. My mistake was keeping those standards high for only one year. From the moment I arrived until we won La Liga, the Supercopa… Later on, I was able to look at myself and say, ‘Man, what happened to me?’” he said.
The downward curve that began under his own watch
When Xavi took over Barcelona in November 2021, the club was going through one of the most unstable periods in its recent history. Even so, the team responded, won La Liga and the Supercopa in the 2022/2023 season, and regained a bit of confidence. But the standards that supported those results didn’t last.
The coach himself admitted that his approach changed and the group followed that shift. He explained that by lowering the level of demand, he watched the squad lose intensity, attitude and even its sense of commitment. In his words, the players no longer showed the same effort, and that showed on the field to the point where “in my last season we didn’t win anything.”
His remarks highlight something important: Barcelona’s inconsistency wasn’t just technical or tactical. There was, according to Xavi, a collective drop in responsibility that started with the coach and spread through the locker room.
The weight of the post-Messi era and the wear that came with it
It’s impossible to ignore the emotional backdrop surrounding Xavi’s tenure. He took charge at a time when Barcelona was still dealing with Messi’s departure, with severe financial limitations and a squad that mixed promising young talent with a lack of depth. Winning the league brought relief, but it also created the feeling that the path ahead was set. It wasn’t.
The mistake he acknowledges now serves as a warning for his next chapter. The coach who took Barça back to the top for a season is the same one who admits he lost his grip the following year. And that level of self-awareness, rarely expressed so openly, may shape a more mature version of Xavi when he returns to the sidelines.