Florentino’s Surprising Message to Barcelona’s Board

The defeat in El Clásico has handed La Liga to Real Madrid on a silver platter. Within the Barça camp, there’s a wide range of opinions regarding Xavi’s role as coach and the viability of the sporting project, especially after a week where Barcelona crashed out of both the Champions League and the league race. It’s shaping up to be another trophyless year for Barça.

Joan Laporta and Florentino Pérez had their usual meeting during the directors’ lunch on Sunday in Madrid. In ‘La Posesión 1×16’, Ferran Correas revealed that Real Madrid president, Florentino Pérez, delivered a message that surprised the Barcelona board. A member of the FC Barcelona Board of Directors stated that during the lunch, Florentino expressed confusion about “why people were getting so nervous” regarding Barça’s Champions League exit and the potential slip in the league race. The Real Madrid president reminded them that last season, Real Madrid clearly lost the league and suffered a 4-0 defeat to Manchester City in the Champions League semifinals, yet Carlo Ancelotti’s position was never in doubt, unlike Xavi’s, even though the latter lacks the trophy cushion of the Italian.

As discussed in the program’s discussion, Barcelona is still in a rebuilding phase, and being knocked out in the Champions League quarterfinals and losing the league to Real Madrid are within the realm of possibilities. However, in Barcelona, there’s an obsession with playing style that doesn’t exist in Madrid. Xavi hasn’t managed to consistently deliver a high level of play.

His future remains uncertain, and it remains to be seen whether Laporta will yield to his demands to improve the squad or if the man from Terrassa will stick to what he said back in January.