Xavi — Barca’s prodigal son who found the silver lining Premium

Winning titles both as a master and an apprentice at a football club sounds like the perfect media story, or even a Hollywood script. Xavi Hernandez has done exactly that at Barcelona

The romance of winning titles both as a master and an apprentice at a football club sounds like the perfect media story, or even a Hollywood script.

Bob Paisley did it with Liverpool, Carlo Ancelotti with AC Milan and Zinedine Zidane with Real Madrid. Now, Xavi Hernandez has completed his circle of life with Barcelona.

Beating Espanyol 4-2 on Monday, with four games to go, Barcelona won its first LaLiga title in four seasons, under the stewardship of Xavi, who had won eight league titles as a player at the club.

And that circle of life became more special given the circumstances at the club.

In 2020, when Liverpool won the Premier League, people came out with flares, children on top of their fathers’ shoulders, cheering for their club in a world that was desperate for happiness during the catastrophic COVID-19 period.

Barcelona’s longing for joy was similar, if not the same. The players celebrated their silverware with a sardana, like gleeful toddlers rejoicing in a garden. Fans sang, with tears rolling down their cheeks, and Xavi stood smiling from ear to ear.

The club has been embroiled in a refereeing scandal, where allegations of paying the former president of the LaLiga refereeing committee, Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, for “technical reports” have earned it a bad name.