Nations League a chance for Xavi Simons to impress suitors
After nine years in Barça’s youth academy, the talented youngster, then 16, turned down a contract of 200,000 euros per year. He has reached his potential this season at PSV.
In April 2003, way before Xavi had reached legendary status at Camp Nou, Regillio and Peggy Simons named their second son, Xavi - in honour of Barcelona’s stylish young midfielder. Football is in the Simons’ family genes - between the early 90s until his retirement in 2007, Regillio had a played as a professional for several clubs in the Netherlands, Japan and Turkey.
Fate took the Simons’ from Amsterdam to Spain when little Xavi was just three years old. Regillio’s in-laws had moved to Rojales, Alicante, where they used to spend their summers until they decided to settle there. Xavi and his older brother, Faustino, began to play at Thader, a local club. It was there where he was spotted by Guillermo Amor who immediately told Barça about this talented uoung player who had made a huge impact on from the moment he saw him. Barça club called the boy for a trial. Accompanied by his mother, he spent a couple of days doing tests in La Masia before Barça enrolled him directly into the youth academy.
As the saying goes, Simons was a footballer before his time. His football was impressive in the most famous youth tournaments and caught the eye of super agent Mino Raiola. He also signed a contract with Nike and became an influencer (he attracted over a million followers) when he was barely a kid.
But Barça lost him in 2019. At the age of 16, he was offered an ascending contract outside the usual thresholds. The first year, Simons would earn 200,000 euros. Despite the fact that he had made good friends at Barça (he is still great friends with Balde), he decided to leave. That salary was not enough to compete with what Paris Saint-Germain could offer him. Barça meanwhile were at odds with the French club after their frustrated attempts to sign Verratti and PSG luring Neymar to Paris.
Simons, a player with exceptional talent, charisma plus all of the automatisms of Barça’s passing game, made his debut for PSG with PSG against Strasbourg in April 2021. But for a moment his career seemed to stop. The collection of big name stars and the egos unleashed at PSG seemed to threaten his progression. Simons then showed that he was much more than just an influencer or the image of a young winner dressed by Nike. He completely changed tack and returned home. PSV called him up and it has been in the Eredivisie where he has broken through as a professional. He finished last season with 22 goals and 12 assists in all competitions and as the second top scorer in the Dutch top flight.
International debut
Van Gaal did not hesitate to include him in the Netherlands squad for the World Cup. He made his senior debut in Qatar against the United States in the Round of 16. When Koeman took over the reins of the national team, Simons was in the starting XI for his first two games in charge - the European qualifiers against France and Gibraltar.
Simons has given his career another turnaround. Recently, he left his old representation agency (Mino Raiola was replaced at the helm of the same agency by Rafaela Pimienta) and has joined Darren Dein. This is probably why his future is linked to Arsenal (Dein is still the representative, for example, of Cesc Fàbregas).
Simons is under contract until 2017 with PSV. PSG maintains a purchase option on the midfielder, although no one has specified the figure (it is speculated to be between 12 and 15 million euros). But the Parisians would have to trigger it this year and Simons doesn’t seem convinced that he would want to return. Koeman has recommended that he spend a year in Eindhoven, but what is clear is that Simons could end up being one of the big news stories of the summer and one of the stars to look out for in this edition of Nations League. The Netherlands begin their Nations League campaign against Croatia this evening.