"Barcelona is back", everyone announces after the 0: 4 victory over Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu, but it seems that this slogan is too hollow and requires a deeper explanation.
Because numerically, it's quite clear that Barça is back.
Yesterday's game marked exactly four months to the day Xavi sat on a bench as a replacement for Ronald Koeman - in a formal 0-1 win over Espanyol on November 20 - and from that moment on the team is on a steady return trend.
From ninth place, the new coach led her to a third place that could be second if she completes her missing game.
Xavi.
Reviving Barcelona,
Before Xavi, Barcelona scored 17 points in 13 games, with which they scored 37 points in 15 games.
Her return trend includes European wins over Napoli and Glatasaray as well as a ticket to the Europa League quarter-finals.
As of yesterday there is also a first win in the Clasico since 2019, but all of these are just the numbers.
The so-called announcement that "Barça is back" does not stem from the fact that it has jumped from the low point to where it is today, but from the path it has made between these points.
After all, the great Barcelona, the one that has disappeared from the face of the earth in recent years due to countless such and such reasons, has never been a team that is measured solely by results.
She was a method and an idea and especially the one who managed to put the method and idea into practice.
Xavi, much more than his predecessors in the post who do not answer the name Pep Guardiola, manages to do so and get Barcelona back on track and its essence.
Instead of humbly accepting that "this is what it is" as Gerard Pique and Koeman said when things did not work out and the horizon was not visible, he insisted that Barça could be brought back to the center of the stage that he has known so well since his days as an actor.
Barcelona celebrates at the Bernabeu,
In a very short period of time and despite some bumps in the road like the disappointment in the Champions League, the relegation from the Cup and the Super Cup and a series of injuries in which of Enso Patti, Xavi took a bunch of players with cracked confidence and rebuilt them.
He did not insist on a complete replica of the tiki taka team that changed world football, but instead gave way to new ideas that fit the existing manpower and the one that arrived in January.
Fran Torres and Adama Traore added a dimension of wing play, with the winger coming from Wolves even getting permission to dribble against the club's tradition.
He returned Osman Dembele to the team despite the rush regarding the renewal of the contract and got an unstoppable player.
Xavi has managed to wake up Sergio Busquets and Gerard Pique dormant cells, he promotes Pedry, Gabby and Frankie de Jong and Pierre Emerick Obmiang has been brought back to life after hitting Arsenal.
Xavi in action.
Brought back the great Barcelona,
The 42-year-old coach mixes tactics with practice.
He understands what the players need to get in order to give what he asks for, and it works.
"This is the way and this is the model we want to present," Xavi said at the end of his biggest win as head coach;
"That way we can face any team on any pitch."
Yesterday Barça proved this most clearly.
Yesterday Barça returned.
Were we wrong?
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