Xavi Hernández may have celebrated his 35th birthday on Sunday, when Barcelona racked up half a dozen goals against Elche, but the Culé captain is enjoying a second youth after many people had written him off this season under Luis Enrique.
Xavi resisted the temptation for a final pay day in the USA or the UAE and is approaching 750 matches for Barcelona. With the captain's armband, his influence is as great as it has ever been at the club.
The veteran midfielder has 744 games under his belt, more than any other player in the club's history, and was the orchestrator of the most successful period in Barcelona's history. The only players anywhere near Xavi's haul of appaearances are Carles Puyol (593), Migueli (549), Víctor Valdés (535), Andrés Iniesta (527), Leo Messi (453), Carles Rexach (449), Guillermo Amor (421), Andoni Zubizarreta (410) and Joan Segarra (402). Xavi's longevity could well see him reach a staggering 800 club appearances after his international retirement in the wake of Spain's World Cup debacle.
Not that the World Cup-winner has not been through tough times and before he was able to get his hands on the biggest prizes in football, he was forced to watch as Barça and Spain's rivals triumphed. Under the tutelage of Luis Aragonés and Pep Guardiola Xavi's star rose and he went from being an object of jeers from the Camp Nou crowd to becoming one of the club's greatest ever players and indispensible to the team. He is planning on a coaching career, but has no immediate intention of hanging up his boots.
Since the beginning of the season, when his future at the club was cast into doubt, Xavi has become one of the key parts of Luis Enrique's side on the pitch and off it: on more than one occasion the captain was instrumental in soothing ruffled feathers in the dressing room, as players of the stature of Messi and Neymar listen to every word their admired colleague has to say.
from Últimas noticias | Diario AS http://ift.tt/1Csuiz0
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