Xavi: “Real Madrid are the favorites”

A completely different atmosphere surrounded FC Barcelona a couple of weeks ago, but things have drastically changed since then.

From an 18-game unbeaten streak to being eliminated from the Europa League and losing their second LaLiga game.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Xavi Hernández lost some key players recently. He won’t be able to call upon the services of Pedri, Ousmane Dembélé, and Robert Lewandowski in the Copa del Rey first-leg semifinals game against Real Madrid.

With Xavi as Barcelona coach, the team has won 84 out of 93 points in LaLiga (90%) when Pedri has played, while the squad’s performance has considerably dropped when the Canary Islands footballer hasn’t featured, winning 31 out of 54 points (57%).

Pessimism or strategy?

Although Barcelona are the LaLiga leaders and have been a pretty solid team overall this campaign, Xavi believes Los Blancos are the favored squad to get a good result in Madrid.

“They won the last titles and we are in the process of building. We beat them with extraordinary football last year, but it is also a Madrid that thrashed Liverpool at their stadium”, stated the Terrassa native.

“I have to be honest, I see them as favorites. We are talking about the current champions of La Liga and Europe”, he added.

While some fans believe this can’t be considered a transition season for a big club like Barça and openly consider the team’s elimination in Europe as a failure, others, like Xavi, are more cautious. And against Madrid, the Barça coach hopes the team competes well, as he also said ahead of the Manchester United game at Old Trafford.

“Fear gives us negative things, we have to think positively. We have competed well so far. We will compete face to face”, he concluded.

Real Madrid will be looking to avenge their 3-1 loss in the Spanish Super Cup final and try to repeat their performance in LaLiga against the Catalans when they emerged victorious 3-1 at Santiago Bernabéu in October.