Spanish press reports said today, Thursday, that Barcelona has reached an agreement with its former star Xavi Hernandez to take over the position of coach, to replace Ronald Koeman, who was sacked yesterday, Wednesday.
And the Spanish newspaper “SPORT” reported - today, Thursday - that Barcelona reached an agreement with Xavi just 12 hours after the dismissal of Dutch coach Ronald Koeman after the defeat at Rayo Vallecano with a goal without a response yesterday evening, Wednesday, to make the Catalan club suffer its fourth defeat in the last 6 Matches across all leagues.
Xavi, 41, graduated from Barcelona's youth academy and starred with the first team between 1998 and 2015 and won 25 titles, including 4 titles in the Champions League and 8 titles in the Spanish League.
Xavi moved to the Qatari club Al Sadd, where he ended his career with him in 2019 and is currently coaching the team on a contract that extends until 2023.
There is a penalty clause in Xavi's contract with Al Sadd worth one million euros (about one million and 160 thousand dollars), after he confirmed earlier that he aspires to coach Barcelona one day.
But according to Sport, Barcelona needs to hold further talks with Al-Sadd, and at the same time indicated that an agreement is expected to be reached before the end of Thursday.
Neither Barcelona nor Xavi have commented on this speculation yet.
Barcelona faces many problems, most notably the debts that burdened the team after it crossed the one billion euro barrier, in addition to the departure of Argentine star Lionel Messi and French striker Antoine Griezmann during the last summer transfer period.