Xavi therefore threw in the towel. At the end of the match lost against Villarreal (3-5), the FC Barcelona coach publicly announced that he will leave his position at the end of the season, one year before the end of his contract. “I would like to announce that on June 30, I will no longer continue as coach of Barça. I think the situation needs to change course and, as a culer, I cannot allow the current situation”.
Since then, the Spanish media, as is often the case, have drawn up a list of potential candidates to succeed the former Blaugrana midfielder. And the least we can say is that the prestigious names are legion. Thiago Motta, Roberto De Zerbi, Luis Enrique, Rafa Marquez, Thomas Tuchel, Hansi Flick, Mikel Arteta and even the resigning Jürgen Klopp were cited.
Mission impossible for Laporta?
Yesterday, Sport even announced that Klopp was Joan Laporta’s priority. And this morning, Estadio Deportivo relays information according to which Jorge Mendes would work to send José Mourinho to Catalonia. Except that, obviously, the versions are not the same depending on the media. Indeed, El Chiringuito announced last night that the president of FC Barcelona would have another priority in mind. An impossible dream: bringing Pep Guardiola back, fourteen years later. Laporta is the man who installed Guardiola as head of the culé first team in 2008 and he plans to try his luck again. The Spanish media explains that Laporta knows that it is very complicated, if not impossible.
Guardiola is at the head of a Manchester City team that is significantly more competitive than his beloved Barça and the financial means of the Cityzens are far superior to those of a Blaugrana club forced to tinker with each transfer window to register a recruit in La Liga. In addition, Guardiola is under contract until 2025 and receives an annual salary in excess of €20 million. In short, so many elements make this file extremely complicated. But El Chiringuito assures that the Catalan boss will call Guardiola in the coming days before all other potential targets. He will ask him for a favor and insist on the culé fiber to hope to convince Guardiola to come and save his favorite club.
