Barca take on Espanyol in Xavi’s return; Sociedad host Valencia
MADRID: Ater 2,373 days away, Xavi Hernandez will be back with Barcelona for a match at Camp Nou on Saturday and he can expect a hero’s welcome. Real Sociedad, the league leaders, play at home to Valencia on Sunday ater Real Madrid face struggling Granada at Los Carmenes. Earlier on Saturday, Sevilla host Alaves and Atletico Madrid are at home to Osasuna.
Xavi’s return as coach was confirmed at the start of the international break but two weeks has done nothing to dim the crackle of excitement ahead of his opening game on the bench.
Almost 10,000 fans, at 1pm on a Monday, atended a presentation with club president Joan Laporta last week, when Xavi’s atempts to thank the crowd were thwarted by the sound of them chanting his name.
Laporta will hope more than eight times that number will be in the stands on Saturday when Barcelona face neighbours Espanyol, the club whose claim to a rivalry has historically been only geographical but who now find themselves level on points with Barca in La Liga.
It is another reminder of Barcelona’s slide away from the elite. They are ninth, already 10 points behind Real Madrid in second and, more pressingly, six adrit of Atletico Madrid in fourth.
Averting the financial diaster of missing out on Champions League qualification will be Xavi’s first priority between now and May. They have conceded more goals than Espanyol and Rayo Vallecano, both of whom have just come up from the second division. They have won none of their last four league games and only two of their last nine.
There is unlikely to be the option of a quick-fix either, with the club still desperately trying to reduce record debts of more than a billion euros.
Barca’s chief executive Mateu Alemany said on Wednesday that “as it stands there is nothing let” for signings in the January transfer window.
Yet Xavi’s return, for a while at least and certainly on Saturday, momentarily pushes all that into the background. Dismay at the club’s decline and Lionel Messi’s departure can be forgoten, apprehension even about Xavi’s own credentials as coach saved for another day.
Spanish League fixtures (GMT) Saturday: Celta Vigo vs Villarreal (1300), Sevilla vs Alaves (1515), Atletico Madrid vs Osasuna (1730), Barcelona vs Espanyol (2000) Sunday: Getafe vs Cadiz (1300), Granada vs Real Madrid (1515), Elche vs Real Betis (1730), Real Sociedad vs Valencia ( 2000)
Monday: Vallecano vs Mallorca (2000)