After his final recreation gambling for Barcelona in 2015, Xavi stood on the pitch on the Olympic Stadium in Berlin along with his left hand at the right ear of the European Cup.
Holding the trophy with him changed into Andres Iniesta and with their spare fingers, they each raised 4 hands, one for each in their Champions League triumphs.
The Saturday earlier than, Xavi had won the Copa del Rey and the Saturday earlier than that, La Liga, 3 titles and any other treble, the second one of his career, entire.
He become leaving for Qatar at the end of a season wherein his function were reduced, his relevance wondered, but nonetheless on a high, and with Barcelona on top of the world.
Xavi turned into appointed as educate on Saturday morning with the team ninth in La Liga and facing a fight to make it out of their institution in the Champions League.
Iniesta is lengthy-long gone and Lionel Messi is playing for Paris Saint-Germain. Those that remain from Xavi's era, like Gerard Pique, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, are beyond their excellent.
More gamers will ought to depart and few will arrive as Barcelona continue to paintings off crippling money owed of one.35 billion euros.
The club's 99,000-seater Camp Nou is obsolete and increasingly more empty. Against Alaves closing week, only 37,278 fans turned up to observe.
Can it get worse? Barcelona ought to slide in addition down La Liga but that seems unlikely. They may want to omit out at the Champions League last sixteen and drop into the Europa League - but no person could blame Xavi for the defeats that made qualification difficult.
At some factor, for a membership whose sales, stadium ability, records and gamers remain the various first-rate in the international, a disaster will become an opportunity.
