Barcelona coach Xavi Hernández’s excellent Clásico record against Carlo Ancelotti’s Real Madrid

Barcelona head coach Xavi Hernández has turned things around at the very top of Spanish soccer and it’s inevitably come at the expense of Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti. In 2023, the Catalans have won three Clásicos out of three, which has already led to one trophy and could well end up with them winning two more.

Three Clásico wins = three trophies?

The first of the those matches came in in the Spanish Super Cup final in Saudi Arabia in January, with Barça cruising to a thoroughly-deserved 3-1 win over their arch rivals. A month and a half later, they then took a big step towards reaching the Copa Del Rey final by edging out Los Blancos in the first leg of the semi-finals at Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, winning 1-0 after a backs-to-the-wall performance. And thirdly, Sunday’s game at Camp Nou, in which Barcelona managed to come back from a goal down to emerge victorious in injury time. The result leaves them 12 points clear of Madrid at the top of LaLiga with 12 matches left to play.

Barcelona turn the tide against rivals

Ancelotti’s record against Xavi’s Barcelona doesn’t make for happy reading for the Italian; he has only won two of seven meetings so far. Madrid won the very first of those, a 3-2 extra-time victory in the semi-finals of last season’s Spanish Super Cup. And when the European champions defeated the Catalans 3-1 at the Bernabéu in the first league Clásico of 2022-23 in October, becoming the only domestic team to have scored three times against them, few would have envisaged Barça storming so far ahead a few months later.

Xavi has come out on top in each of the other five encounters (although you would be right to question whether we should include last summer’s friendly victory in Las Vegas in the conversation...). One game we definitely should consider, though, is a superb 4-0 win for Barcelona in Madrid last season, which will forever be etched into the memory of Culers. That doesn’t happen ever year.

Xavi’s overall record against Real Madrid

All in all, Xavi has led to Barcelona to five Clásico victories in seven attempts (or four in six if we’re omitting that pre-season warm-up game).

Looking at their numbers in LaLiga more generally, Xavi also comes out on top. Since joining Barcelona at the beginning of November 2021, La Blaugrana have taken a total of 124 points, compared to Real Madrid’s 115.