Often, Xavi Hernandez, Barcelona's Spanish coach, does not find any problem in justifying his team's failure to win, most recently after the "Blaugrana" tied against Getafe.
In that match, Barcelona failed to win for the third time in a row in all tournaments, and the second in the Spanish League, after its goalless draw with its host Getafe for the 29th round.
The Getafe and Barcelona match was held at 16:15 Spanish time (17:15 Mecca time), which angered Xavi, due to the sunlight covering a large part of the stadium, in addition to the poor ground.
Getafe and Barcelona empataron 0-0.
Xavi: "Estamos acostumbrados a jugar de noche y sin sol".
The respuesta of Quique Sanchez Flores, DT del equipo madrileño, es entender absolutamente todo. pic.twitter.com/fB6j9ydCWv pic.twitter.com/e78y7yVzBd
— VarskySports (@VarskySports) April 16, 2023
And the Spanish newspaper "Marca" stated that Xavi surprised everyone in the press conference after the match, when he justified his team's draw by saying, "We are used to playing at night, without sunlight."
He added, "In fact, the condition of the grass affected us, knowing that we trained on dry grass before the match, but the whole world saw how difficult it was, it is very difficult to play that way."
Xavi continued, "This is not a good thing for playing football, as the ball remains stuck and does not rotate quickly. This is bad even for Getafe as well. In fact, the conditions should be better."
The Spanish newspaper recovered some of Xavi's statements during his career as a player and coach, in which he justified his team's failure to win because of the pitch, or his criticism of the way the opponents played.
potato field
Xavi witnessed many "El Clasico" confrontations between Barcelona and Real Madrid, during the exciting period in which coaches Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho were present, and did not hesitate to criticize the "royal" team.
He said about Real Madrid, "We did not leave the field dry to play in a potato field, nor did we kick our opponents 30,000 times, nor did we work to tension the matches. We won, lost, and tied, but always according to our playing philosophy."
Control is more important than winning
In the 2012-2013 season, Barcelona suffered a severe loss from Bayern Munich (0-7) in the two-legged Champions League semi-finals.
#OTD 6️⃣ years ago. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/KaniBmZ7jd
— 🇺🇸 FC Bayern US 🇨🇦 (@FCBayernUS) May 1, 2019
But Xavi, the player's view of what happened at the time, was completely different. He said, "If we only look at the result, this is a superficial view. You should watch the two matches again. The ball was ours, and they could not control us."
the lawn
It can be said that the grass of the stadium is an obsession for Xavi, in most of the matches in which Barcelona does not win, and this matter has been criticized many times.
"The grass was very dry, and this caused us many difficulties. We wanted to move the ball quickly, but they did not spray the field with water," said Xavi once, after the loss from Atletico Madrid at the Vicente Calderon stadium.
As he stated before one of the matches of the Spanish national team, when “La Roja” conducted a session at the “Toumba del Pauk” stadium in Thessaloniki, Greece, “It has been many years since we have seen a pitch like this, there is a great risk for the players to be injured, we played a lot in Bad pitches, but not that bad."
"We just play."
Barcelona lost the King's Cup title to rivals Real Madrid in the 2013-2014 season, with a score (1-2), with the famous goal scored by Welshman Gareth Bale.
On that day, Xavi justified the defeat by saying, "We were the only ones who wanted to play football. We dominated most of the game and watched Barcelona, which we want, but unfortunately they hit us from a counterattack."
