The question of whether the footballer makes the coach or the coach makes the player is timeless. Practice has shown that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Even the best players can fail if they don’t have the right coach, but even the greatest coaches need to work with the best to succeed. A good marriage is a guarantee of success.

The rule

But there is one rule. Good coaches have a specific game plan that they try to develop based on the material and conditions. Of course, in order to achieve the goals, they need the right players. The ideals to follow their plan and thereby increase the level of their team. In addition, through their work, good coaches ensure that they manage to push the players to their playing limits in the long term. Given this reality, there is no way to create chaotic situations.

The coach has to work on a concrete football plan

Footballers have their egos, their own truth, which often hides egoism. But it goes without saying that when the team is working on a certain game plan, through which they see themselves that progress is coming, they are motivated to work better in training. If the coach in a team doesn’t have anything specific to work on and only focuses on adaptation, at a certain point everyday life in the training center becomes unbearable. As soon as the results go awry, resolution comes.

Of course, every situation has its own reality, but a good coach has to have a specific game plan and work every day to try to improve his team. Beyond that, many things come into play: the skill, the talent, the performances, the contagion, the perception of helping the players with his coaching, as well as how much each coach’s game plan sticks with the club and therefore with the footballer.

ideal marriage

This great prologue was written because the world of football is living an ideal marriage lately. A collaboration that screams that it will make a difference at the highest level. Xavi’s collaboration with Barcelona. The player Xavi, one of the best clean central midfielders in modern football, has managed in four months to revive an idea that seemed to have died in Barcelona. To bring back Barça football. The sporting progress that he has made in a very short time is really impressive.

I try not to confuse my competitive work with my journalism and writing. Those of you who have read my posts on S24 BET will remember that after the Barcelona Supercopa semi-final with Real I wrote that Barça is back. Real were humiliated 4-0 at the Santiago Bernabeu in a game that didn’t cost them last Sunday but got the news earlier.

He had previously given the message

Xavi took charge of Barcelona for the national teams during the November break. In the Supercopa semifinals on January 12, he didn’t even count two months of work. Real went into the game with the comfort of the favorites and Andelotti explained that the difference in the league shows the truth, but we shouldn’t underestimate Barcelona. During the game there were moments when the veteran Italian coach suffered as well.

Surely he would understand that this was not because of the devaluation but because of the difficulties his footballers are having in dealing with Barcelona football. A football with lots of possession, lots of passing with high accuracy and an effort for immediate interceptions. All of this is known, it’s the foundation on which Barça’s history was left, it’s everything the club itself taught him for so many years and Xavi is coming to bring it back. He also knows that modern football demands high intensity, quick decisions, speed of development, but also high pressure.

The many small passes that get the whole team attacking are good, but modern football also needs speed and players who can overtake their player.

The miracle with Dembele

The improvement at Barça has come through teamwork but lately Usman Dembele is making a big difference in this incredible unleashing of the team who are a record 9-3-0 in all competitions. A footballer who was a constant problem from the day he set foot in Barcelona until Xavi took over. The best gift he could give them was to propose to the Saudis and go to Newcastle.

With Ronald Koeman, Dembele was absolutely zero, he hadn’t offered the slightest thing. From the day Xavi took over, he has nine assists and one goal. The terrible thing about Dembele is that he has provided seven assists since February 20. He also has 15 key passes in the last five games.

If you look at Barcelona matches, apart from the football that shone a lot on Xavi’s, you can also see an attempt to use the speed and skill in a one-on-one with Dembele, which takes the skill to the final. passes.

The terrible situation Dembele is in hasn’t given Adama Traore, who joined from Wolves in January, the space and time he wanted.

Ferran Torres makes everything easier

For his team’s balance, Xavi wants an extreme, to give width and play on one side and opposite Ferran Torres, who makes everything easier. Torres is practically a playmaker for Barca. The ball rests on him and stays on him. As he converges inside and holds the ball, the entire team moves around him, Jordi Alba dashes on his back, Pedri approaches to play with him, Dembele ready to capitalize on a quick break that sees him and Pierre Emerick will free Obameyang to read the opposing defense’s error to exploit. Suddenly Barcelona became a well-tuned machine.

As I wrote in my foreword, the coach who has a specific plan in mind also knows what players need to develop it. In January, Obamayang came as a done deal and along with Dembele, Gerard Pique, Sergio Busquets and all of Barça, Xavi seemed poised to revive him. At the top of the attack, a fake 9ari like Memphis Depay, who wants to be permanently involved in the development of the game, keeps the ball on his feet and often works selfishly, didn’t fit into his own football, nor of course a classic area striker like Luke de Jong.

A power that reads the gap in the opponent’s defense

He needed an attacker who could read and move in space. With Pedri on the axis, Ferran on the left and Dembele we spotted close to him last month, it’s a given that if Obamayang reads the gap in opposition defense well, he’ll put the ball where he wants.

The Gabon striker seemed to have finished at a high level. With the image he showed at Arsenal, Xavi’s decision to bring him to Barça came as a surprise. But the stadium justifies it. He has scored seven goals in the last five games he has played.

championship record

Barça have been screaming for the last month that they are coming back and coming to win titles. Xavi took over the team in 7th place with a record of 4-5-3. With the image that the championship had, even the 4th team seemed difficult. Xavi shows everything that he has secured the team’s realistic goal. He is 3rd with 54 points, four above 5th Betis and one game down. It took an 11-4-1 record to achieve that. That is, from the day Xavi took over, Barça will receive 2.31 points per game. An average capable of giving a championship. For example, if Xavi averages 29 games, Barça would have 66.99 points while Real have 66 points.

The goals he has achieved and the upcoming Europa League

There is an image, a football proposal that shows that it will bring success in the long run. Of course, Xavi has brought Barcelona well below the highest level of the competition, but the team’s image screams that time is working in its favour. The goal of the 4th team seems to have been achieved, as well as the aim to go the distance and teach Real a first lesson for this season.

A title remains open. The Europa League gives Xavi the opportunity to claim and win his first title as Barcelona manager, although it is certain that many more are to come.