Xavi comes in to break old Barcelona habits

Lionel Messi was the starman of a legendary Barcelona team. His departure has, however, produced some undesirable consequences that new team manager, Xavi, must now correct. A player of Messi's stature ends up doing what he wants (and getting paid what he wants). Unfortunately, others follow suit, and also end up doing whatever they want. The most obvious example is Gerard Piqué, with his trips to Madrid, with the Davis Cup, with his electric bike, with his football club in Andorra and several other ventures.

Xavi's rules

It is an extreme case, but it is not the only one. At Barça, for a long time there has been little training done. There is a lot of private physical training. Players arrive late for training and they don't rest. adequately The coach is taken for granted, even more so if the choice is so poor as in the case of Quique Setién, or if the president himself cheapens his authority, as Joan Laporta did when he arrived with Ronald Koeman. That's where Xavi is going to start, by implementing rules. Speaking in recent days, he discussed his time as a player at Camp Nou: "When we've had rules, we've done well. When we haven't had them, we've done badly". Now that Messi is not around anymore, the old habits will be broken.

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That will be the test for Xavi: to set serious work habits. Then the rest will then follow. I suspect he's going to have to do a pre-season in the middle of the season and he'll need other people (he's already working on it) to stop the rampant bleeding of muscle injuries. Barcelona fans are on his side and support him much more than Laporta. An interesting pool of talent is also emerging from the club's academy, La Masia. Now the intrigue is whether or not Piqué will come to Madrid for the Davis Cup.