light up (as if you have a choice)
by stickmarionette
"Xavi did not seem to want to become a Catalan hero like Guardiola. He did not do the things that get footballers headlines, like squabbling or being transferred or scoring lots of goals. He never spoke much. At 5ft 7in tall, he was no superhero. All he did was hit passes, left to right, up and down, like someone filling in a crossword puzzle at top speed."
- Simon Kuper, Financial Times
Xavi was born a footballer, just like his brothers and sister and his father before him.
When he was six years old his father saw him look up with the ball at his feet, measuring out the pass before he made it, and knew that he was different to the rest.
The rest of the family loved football, but it was an infatuation they could only nurse from afar; Xavi's affections were returned.
*
When Xavi was ten years old, his father took him to La Masia. He didn't say anything different in the car, just the usual have fun and do your best like any other day, like Xavi wasn't going to be playing on the same pitch that Guardiola and Amor once ran on. Like there was nothing more than a game of football at stake.
Once he started playing, though, it did feel just like any other game. Terrassa, Barcelona, it didn't really matter. When Xavi got the ball, he always knew what to do with it.
An old man with enormous eyebrows tapped him on the shoulder as he was walking off to change after the game. "Hey. Stay behind for a moment."
"Yes, sir."
The old man had bright, shrewd eyes and a kind smile. Xavi had to fight the urge to square his shoulders. He stayed very still and made himself look up.
"You stayed behind with the centerbacks when everyone else was attacking, every single time. Why was that?"
Too obvious, surely. But the mister didn't look like the type to ask trick questions. "If we all attack, it's easy for the other team to score."
The old man's eyes crinkled at the corners. "Good answer. What's your name, kid?"
"Xavi, from Terrassa."
"Well, Xavi from Terrassa, would you like to play for Barca?"
The words tumbled out of his mouth like he'd been waiting to say them forever.
"Yes. Yes, of course. Yes, I would."
*
Keep the ball. Circulate.
The names and faces of his team mates changed every year. Some years he ended up being the last kid standing in his age group, and that was tough.
There was only one constant.
Receive, pass, offer.
He watched. He listened. He passed.
*
The first time Xavi saw Pep Guardiola, across a room instead of on TV or from the Camp Nou stands, he couldn't do anything but stare.
He wasn't the only one, either. The dining room - normally filled with the noise of a hundred hungry, chatty kids devouring their food as quickly as possible in the gaps between conversations - was dead silent.
Beside him, Luis finally succeeded in tearing his eyes away, only to turn an accusing look on Xavi. "You knew about this, didn't you? You always know. And you didn't tell me?"
Luis had a curious, touching belief in Xavi's infallibility, stemming from his first days at La Masia, when Xavi had looked him up and down and said Luis Garcia from Badalona, right?
(It was true that he made it his business to know everyone coming and going at Barca, but he couldn't cover everything.)
"Definitely not scheduled," Xavi whispered back. "Guess he just wanted to see us."
If Pep felt like visiting La Masia and sitting down to dinner with the kids, who was going to say no?
Up front, the man himself grinned and spread his hands, taking in the entire room. He looked much smaller in person, like a stiff breeze could blow him away. "Don't let me keep you from your food. Pretend I'm not here, if it helps."
"I don't think that's possible, Pep." By the appalled looks on everyone's faces, they all thought it, but Mr Costas was the only one there who could have said it. "You might as well talk. Let the kids know why you're here, I bet they're all wondering what they've done to earn a visit."
"I like it here. It's my home. Earlier today I watched Juvenil A play Espanyol. A great game, very exciting. Watching you guys play reminds me what we're here for."
Xavi sat up straighter. Pep watched him play? Pep watched him play in the position he'd mastered, with his number 4 on his back, and approved?
He didn't realize his hand was shaking until Luis covered it with his own. Up front, Pep smiled. His big brown eyes gleamed, and his voice rose, holding the entire room spell-bound.
"There's a reason for the way we play, the way we teach you all to play. Because you have a responsibility to Catalunya, to the fans, to play this way. That's not old fashioned, it's not past tense. It's now, and for as long as you wear this shirt. Don't think of it as a burden. Think of it as a privilege, because it is. If you've made it this far, it absolutely is."
For a moment, Xavi could have sworn Pep was looking straight at him, that the words and the smile were for him alone.
"Now eat, you've all got homework to do."
*
Luis was sulking again. Getting demoted back to Juvenil A after a B team call-up was never fun, but Xavi knew better than to let it onto his face. Luis couldn't seem to help himself.
"Sometimes I think I'm never gonna make it."
"Not with that attitude, anyway," Xavi said lightly, earning an elbow to the ribs for his trouble.
Luis buried his face in Xavi's shoulder. His words came out muffled. "Honesty isn't always helpful. That was one of those times, man."
"I'm sorry. What was I supposed to say?" Xavi shrugged with a nonchalance that he didn't feel. "Everyone knows how tough the process is. We all have the same slim chance."
By getting B team call-ups, both of them had already won the lottery. They'd outlasted most of their peers and were in with a chance at getting into the first team, depending on the attitude of the manager. That was all anyone could hope for.
Luis raised his head and gave him the sweetly patronizing, indulgent look of a grandmother. "You know that's not true. You make all of us play better, Xavi. Someone will see that eventually."
"I don't know about that."
With Van Gaal in charge, and Pep in the prime of his career, Xavi wasn't sure he'd be going anywhere anytime soon.
*
Then Pep got injured. He didn't get better, not for the whole season, and there were all kinds of rumours about why; things Xavi had never thought he'd hear said about any footballer, let alone Pep Guardiola. Things that made him wish he wasn't addicted to knowing.
Pep was still injured at the end of the season. He had another operation, and some papers said he'd never play again.
When Xavi got his first call-up to the senior side soon after, he didn't know what to feel.
*
Van Gaal had a way of looking down his nose at someone that made them feel like dirt. It took Xavi a few weeks of first team training to figure out that it wasn't deliberate. Or least it wasn't just him. Even Rivaldo and Figo got the same look. Luis Enrique, who Xavi liked a great deal (call me Lucho, kid) was so used to it he just grinned back.
(When he really didn't like someone, Van Gaal did far more than just stare at them disdainfully. Xavi saw enough press conferences to know that.)
The way he was being examined now was new.
"Hey, kid. You're starting tomorrow."
Xavi took back every bad thought he'd ever had about the man.
"Yes, boss," he said, finally. His voice only shook a little.
Van Gaal's eyes narrowed. "Problem?"
"No, boss."
It was only the moment he'd been waiting for all his life, ever since he understood what it meant to aspire to something.
"Don't fuck up," Van Gaal said gruffly, with something that was almost a smile. "I'm betting on you."
He patted Xavi on the head before walking away.
*
Before kick-off, Lucho wrapped his arms around his middle and squeezed until he stopped shaking.
"You okay, kid?"
He couldn't breathe, could hardly stand, his head felt like it was going to explode - and he loved it.
(Later, when he thought back to that day, it seemed as if he'd given up on sanity then and never looked back.)
Xavi took a deep breath; let it out. "I'm fine. I'm great."
Then they kicked off, and it was the same game as always.
The ball came to him just outside the box as if on a string, and he knew precisely what was going to happen before it did.
The rush of seeing the ball in the back of the net from his strike still knocked him breathless.
*
"You're back with the B team from tomorrow."
What did I do? You need a midfielder, I know you need -
Xavi was a good kid who never mouthed off. It was enough for him to know, and not to speak.
"Okay, boss."
*
Two weeks later, he was back, and wishing he wasn't. If it was as simple as playing football, he could do that, he was even very good at it. But confirming with his own eyes and ears that the rumours of infighting in the papers had some foundation, that some of the people he was training with were undoubtedly leaking those rumours - that was an additional layer he didn't want or need.
(He found himself wondering how Pep coped with being at the eye of the storm all this time. How anyone could.)
Van Gaal had a voice like a drill sergeant, especially when he was shouting orders in training. "You know what they're going to say if you do that tomorrow? 'That kid, he's terrible, Guardiola would never have missed that pass.' I want - and you should want - to make them forget Guardiola's name."
No, that's not what I want at all.
Xavi had to suppress a shudder, and then a wince when he saw Sergi's face darken in reaction to Van Gaal's frankly appalling attempt at motivation.
Good job convincing the senior players that you aren't interested in forcing Pep out. Sir.
"I'll do better, boss."
Van Gaal nodded. "Right. Don't forget it."
Fortunately, Rivaldo decided to pick a fight about playing out wide just then, and Xavi could take a breather.
He jumped when Lucho's hand landed on his shoulder. "You okay, kid? Sorry things are so fucked up around here. We know you don't think like that."
"Yeah, I'm fine. Thank you."
Even if he wasn't, no one needed to know. They had enough to worry about.
"You sure?"
"Please tell Pep that - that I hope he can play again soon," Xavi said, all in a rush, not daring to look at Lucho until he was done.
Lucho winked. "Message received. Will do, kid."
"...I was put in a face-off with Pep and that was my misfortune."
- Xavi, Xavi 550
Xavi vs Pep was all over the press within the week. Xavi couldn't even find it in himself to be surprised. It wasn't Van Gaal, and it probably wasn't anyone in the squad, but he knew as well as anyone that Pep had enemies within the club and that he'd just become a pawn in an ever dirtier battle, against a man he never wanted to hurt.
When asked about the comparisons, he could only say that it was an honour to be associated with Pep, which was at least the honest truth. What he couldn't say was that despite Pep's own best attempts at defusing the rising tension, the thought of the path he'd been set on scared him like nothing else.
If he kept walking it as the boy who had come to replace Pep Guardiola, there was only one possible destination.
"I love you," Xavi whispered, to the beautifully maintained pitch, the towering stands, the crisp night air.
I love you, but -
*
" - I don't know if I can deal with this," he said quietly.
His father slammed on the brakes and steered the car into the next available parking spot.
"We've had calls. From Milan."
Xavi exhaled. Gave himself permission to consider it. Could he really leave? It was possible. He was probably good enough, and if he couldn't stay at Barca, Milan was a great alternative, the kind of opportunity that most people couldn't even dream of. He pictured himself in the black and red stripes. The sky didn't fall. Outside, the evening rush hour traffic sped by.
When he could look his father in the eye again, he found the same endless patience and understanding there as always.
Xavi smiled despite himself. "Dad. Come on, let's go home. I'm hungry."
*
A week later, he still had no idea what he was going to do. The Milan offer - unofficial, but ready to become official as soon as he showed interest - was generous. More than generous, for someone young and unproven.
"Hey, maqui. I want to talk to you."
Xavi snapped his head up at the sound of that unmistakable voice, speaking Catalan with a ringing confidence that carried.
"Hey, Pep. How are you feeling?"
The last time Xavi saw him, he'd dropped in on training to talk to Van Gaal about his fitness, and seemed to be bearing up reasonably well.
"Better," Pep said flatly. "Take a walk with me."
Xavi looked around. Training finished twenty minutes ago. The last photographers and journalists had gone. Whatever this was about, it wasn't meant to be a performance. He nodded and stood.
Up close, Pep looked thin and haggard. His eyes were the same, huge and intense, but now they seemed much too big for his features.
"So, I've been hearing some rumours about you."
Xavi stopped walking. "What rumours?"
I swear I have nothing to do with those idiots who are determined to destroy you. I would never -
Pep leaned in close enough to whisper. "Milan's nice this time of the year."
"I don't - " Xavi jerked away, wide-eyed. "How did you know?"
"Friends in strange places?" Pep shrugged. "Anyway, that's not the point. You can't leave."
He said it as if it was a law of the universe. Xavi bristled despite himself. "Says who? I'm not necessary."
He flushed as soon as the words were out of his mouth, horrified at speaking his mind at the worst possible moment, but Pep just smiled, crooked and affectionate.
"Don't be silly. You are Barca. Or you will be."
"I don't understand," Xavi said slowly.
Pep made an impatient noise. "Yes, you do, you just prefer not to. Open your eyes, and keep looking. You have to see everything."
See everything, like Pep did, even when he obviously didn't want to, and become the person everyone looked to when they had no idea what to do? The mere idea was - incredible, unbearable.
Xavi thought he understood, then.
Pep and Barca had a remarkably unhealthy, all-encompassing relationship. And somewhere in his romantic's heart, Pep probably knew it. It was admirable, and beautiful, and it scared Xavi to death. He never wanted to be like that.
"What if I can't?" he said, finally, in a shaky whisper.
Pep cupped Xavi's face with his big hands, holding him still. Tilted his head up until it was all he could do to look up into those bright eyes.
"One day, you won't know where you end and all this begins, and it'll be good. It'll be the best thing you've ever felt. Don't tell me you can turn that down. Nobody can."
*
"Let's put it to a vote," Xavi said, when all he really wanted to do was lay his head down on the dinner table and forget about Barca and Milan and hard decisions for a while.
He was a grown-up, he could deal.
"All right. All in favour?"
Alex and Oscar's hands went up immediately. Xavi stared at his parents' hands twined together on the table, bit his lip, and dug his nails into his thighs.
Slowly, very slowly, his father raised his unoccupied hand.
"We're tied," his mother said with steel in her voice. "Xavi, you decide."
Don't tell me you can turn that down.
Xavi put his hands down flat on the table so they wouldn't shake. "I don't want to go."
His father sighed. "Just think who you've got in front of you at Barca. That's not a person you're up against. That's a symbol. You can't win."
Open your eyes, and keep looking.
Pep had maybe two, three years left before burnout finished him. Someone had to be there for - for afterwards.
"No. Pep isn't - he - I don't care." Xavi straightened and looked everyone in the eye, one by one: his father, his mother, Alex, Oscar, Ariadna. "It doesn't feel right. I'm not going."
Ariadna's brows smoothed out. Her smile was fiercely proud. "Then it's decided. Xavi stays."
*
Things changed between Xavi and Pep after that. They didn't talk much more, but when they did, everything was clearer. Xavi made it a point to sit next to Pep whenever they were going to be seen in public together. There wasn't much else he could do about the rumours other than denying them every five minutes, and putting on a united front was always important.
They went down to La Masia and watched Cadet A hammer Sabadell in between signing autographs and getting their picture taken with some of the parents who'd come to watch. Pep sailed through it all with a veneer of professionalism so thick that Xavi was almost convinced he hadn't read the papers this morning.
He understood more than ever why Mr Costas used to say, "you all need to learn from Pep off the pitch, that's almost more important that what you learn from him on it."
After it was all over, Pep gave Xavi a barely there smile that was more real than anything else he'd seen that day.
"The child who made the telling pass for the first goal - "
"Andres Iniesta," Xavi said, because he could never resist giving the right answer. "He stood out."
Pep's smile widened. "Exactly. Years from now, we'll be watching him play. Don't you think?"
"He's a bit on the skinny side," Xavi said sardonically, striving for the tone of the scouts who'd told him he was not really built for football, yes?
Pep understood him right away. He'd probably been told the same thing himself, once upon a time.
"That's a very funny joke. You're going to retire me, maqui - don't argue, you know you are - but this child is going to retire us both."
*
Everything happened too fast. One moment, Pep and Figo were standing side by side on the balcony of the City Hall, arms raised in triumph, the Liga trophy gleaming before them, and the next - well. Figo was gone, the less said about that the better, and Pep was fighting a losing battle.
Normally that part of it wasn't so alarming. Pep had been fighting the club management - or large chunks of it - for years, mostly against his will if Xavi was any judge. No, that was just part of life. That was Barca. But Pep's contract was up at the end of the season, and he looked so tired every time he let his guard down, as if -
As if he was about to give up.
It was April, and Pep still hadn't signed a new deal. The part of Xavi that always knew, even when he didn't want to, figured that he wasn't going to sign at all.
Sure enough, a few days later, Pep slung an arm around his shoulder and led him away after training. He waited until Xavi was comfortably seated before speaking.
"I'm going to call a press conference for two days from now."
He sounded flat, detached. Like he was talking about somebody else.
Xavi grabbed Pep's arm just above the wrist and dug his fingers in. "Pep, you can't do this to us. If you leave now, it's just going to get worse. Do you really think Serra Ferrer can hold the locker room together?"
His grip was tight enough to bruise. Pep didn't even seem to notice.
"No. He can't, because I've been doing it." Pep tilted his chin up, finally looking Xavi in the eye for the first time that day, and part of Xavi immediately wished he hadn't. "Do you think I've gone too far, this past year? Gotten too obsessed with control?"
His voice came close to cracking on the last word. Xavi, who had never before felt capable of warmth towards a man he only knew how to admire from a far (that's not a person you're up against; that's a symbol), felt a sharp pain in his chest.
"Pep, they spread rumours about you having to retire because you contracted HIV. I think anything you do at this point is justified."
Pep laughed like the crack of a whip. "Who's they? You don't know, do you? The most difficult thing these past five years has been not knowing who the enemy is. I'm tired."
"You can't leave," Xavi said. He didn't care if he sounded desperate. No one else was listening, and Pep would understand why. "Please."
Pep covered Xavi's hand with his own. "I'm sorry for that. And sorrier that I'm leaving you such a mess to clean up." He paused, closed his eyes, took a deep breath. When he opened them again, he was smiling. Sharp-edged and painful, but still a smile. "Part of me wants to say 'we might as well let it all burn down'. But I'll only say it to you."
Open your eyes, and keep looking.
Xavi nodded. "I - I understand."
"Stay. Keep the house from burning down, please. When I come back, I want to see everything still intact."
"...when everything is going well this is the best club in the world, but when things go bad and they get the white hankies out and whistle, what do you do? You go home and you don't leave the house. You Do. Not. Leave."
- Cesc Fabregas, FourFourTwo, January 2012
Just as he'd expected, the next two years were bad.
The locker room was a total mess, with fights every second week; there were more and more people saying bit small for a midfielder, isn't he? when they commented on his performances; the Camp Nou was only half filled for most games, and then only with angry, whistling fans, a sea of white hankies whenever he looked up; the papers sneering at their victories and pouncing with glee on the increasingly frequent defeats - all of it built up until Xavi was sure there had to be a limit somewhere to the misery.
(He thought of Pep saying keep the house from burning down and wanted to fly to Italy just to shout at him, what do I do when our own fans, our own people, are holding the torches and pitchforks?)
Lucho and Puyi and Cocu did the best they could, all the while knowing it wasn't enough. It was all they could do to keep their heads above the water, some days.
"Smile, Puyi. People are looking," Xavi said. Some day they were going to have a manager strong enough to institute closed training, but he couldn't see it happening any time soon without an uproar. So: smiling for the camera.
Puyi tried valiantly and ended up with something more like a grimace. "I'm never going to get used to this."
There was a time when Xavi used to think that too.
"Do you ever think about leaving?"
Puyi looked at him as if he'd asked him to cut his hair. "We're passing through the desert. It's not - leaving would be - it feels wrong. Anything I can do right now, I have to try."
"That's why we need you," Xavi said. "To direct us out of the desert."
He was smiling as he said it, which meant Puyi would take it for a joke. Even though he was dead serious.
Right on cue, Puyi shrugged self-deprecatingly. "Me? I'm just shouting aimlessly, hoping someone'll hear."
"The fans see that. They'll remember how you tried."
When times were bad, they clung onto any sign of conspicuous effort. The Camp Nou loved Puyi.
Puyi shook his head violently. "I don't want at least he tried on my gravestone, Xavi."
*
"...that Xavi, he's a cancer in the locker room - "
His mother pulled the plug on the radio like she wanted to beat someone over the head with it.
"I'm sorry, love," she said.
"What for?"
"Telling you to stay."
Xavi grinned. He didn't even have to fake it. "No, don't be. It'll be better next season."
His mother didn't look convinced, but she hadn't heard the rumours yet. There were going to be big changes soon. About time, too.
In about 2003, Barcelona's local boys sat down together and noted that they had won no big prizes. They resolved to stop tolerating selfish stars. Instead, they themselves would rule the side.
- Simon Kuper, Financial Times
Laporta won the election. The change of regime was more than welcome, but it wasn't going to be enough, not for Xavi and Puyi and those who remained after the new boss' initial clear-out.
It was Lucho's idea to call a meeting of all the players from the cantera. He let Xavi run it, though, since he wasn't technically one of them. There were more of them now than Xavi could ever remember, certainly during his time in the first team. Him, Puyi, Gerard, Gabri, Luis, Thiago, Andres, Victor, Oleguer, Sergio...together, they made up almost half the squad.
Xavi wasn't the most senior, but he'd been around the longest, and no one questioned it when he spoke up.
"I think we all agree that we've had two or three bad years."
Murmurs of agreement. Someone - probably Gabri or Luis - snorted.
"Changes have to be made. We can't let things keep going as they are."
He knew. He'd always known, and always believed, and believed all the more because he'd been constantly tested and stopped to consider but what if we're wrong every single time.
"We need to take charge. It's no use sitting around waiting for things to get better every single time, waiting for some saviour to come and make us a team again."
"What do you want us to do?" Andres asked, very solemnly.
"We have to take responsibility. Make it ours."
*
Frank Rijkaard was a breath of fresh air after years of alternating between tyrants and kindly old men who could only stare helplessly when something went wrong. He was constantly smiling, easy-going to a fault, and Xavi might have suspected him of being too nice to manage if it hadn't been for the methodical clean-out of the locker room he'd done as soon as he was appointed.
He'd picked out the main malcontents without ever seeing the squad interact and put them on the transfer list without any hesitation. Clearly, not a man to be underestimated, despite his absent-minded geniality. On top of that, Xavi still remembered what he'd been like as a player. There was a hard center hidden in there somewhere.
It was just hard to find said center when he looked at Xavi like that. "Do you think you'd enjoy playing further forward?"
"Possibly. I've done it before, in the youth teams," Xavi said cautiously. "If you want me to, I'll give it a go."
"I do. Ronnie needs space to do his magic, he needs a platform. You're in charge of that now."
Xavi stared. "You really think I can do this."
Rijkaard smiled then, the gentle affection in his eyes giving him the look of a kid in an imposing man's body. "Xavi Hernandez, you've nothing to prove. Go on. Make the team play."
*
When he scored off Ronnie's pass at the Bernabeu, he felt it sink like a knife into the tender heart of the Galacticos. The (beautiful, overwhelming) welcome they got at the airport in Barcelona only confirmed it: that goal, that result, changed everything.
They'd taken a season to recover. Next, they'd consolidate. It was time for Barca to win again.
*
Xavi didn't see Puyi in the off-season until half way through, when they both had to turn up at a sponsor event, and Puyi's impressive commitment to suffering with a smile made Xavi determined to cheer him up while they were waiting.
"I hear Cocu's not coming back. The armband is yours, captain."
"Bit early. Vote's not happening for months," Puyi mumbled, looking anywhere but up.
Xavi laughed. "The vote's a formality. Everyone's decided to support you. Really, we decided long before now."
"But - " Puyi cut himself off viciously. He gave Xavi a narrow-eyed look and gestured at the crowd next door. "You know I'm not good at the media stuff."
Xavi looped his arm through the crook of Puyi's and gave him his brightest smile. "Don't worry. You've got me."
*
He kept his promise when the season started.
Some things were the same as always. Xavi passed. But the ending was different now, with Rijkaard, with this new team: Xavi passed, and Barca won.
It wasn't the first time he'd raised a trophy, although it was the first time he felt like he earned it. Him, Ronnie, Samuel, Deco, Puyi, and everyone else.
They were out of the desert.
*
Then he felt his knee go on the training ground.
The months after that were the hardest of his career. He'd never had an injury that bad, and the enforced absence - from training, from the ball - was unbearable.
He missed Barca. What he hadn't quite grasped was how his absence had given it a chance to miss him, the boy who had always been there, the boy they'd taken for granted, not callously but with the sort of distant fondness reserved for a dependable sort. When the Camp Nou chanted his name as one as he warmed up, five months later, his legs wanted to buckle.
In their roars, he finally heard we love you too.
*
The first time Xavi met Leo Messi he'd been astonished by the kid's talent, but only that. La Masia produced many talented young players, and it was anyone's guess whether a timid little Argentinean would turn into a Barca player.
He never imagined that the Camp Nou would be looking to the same kid to carry their team on his fragile shoulders only a few years later; that this kid, small even by Barca standards, still quiet and self-conscious, was capable of the kind of cold determination that enabled him to leave the warmth of his fading mentors and older brothers behind and do what he had to do.
Somehow, Xavi could see the heavy crown that had sapped so many at Barca, and which was now sitting rather uneasily on Ronnie's head, fitting him perfectly, and he wasn't the only one.
After one particularly ridiculous game, Giuly all but smothered Leo with a long hug in the locker room, giving him a look halfway between rueful and fond when he finally let go.
"You're gonna force me out of here, kid. And you know what? I don't even care. Just promise you'll keep it up."
Leo's cheeks were flushed, but his eyes were clear. "As long as they let me. I promise."
He was completely different from Xavi in almost every sense, except the one that mattered most. They both understood what it meant to be the ones who had to stay and keep going - long after those who could just pack up and leave had gone - and who stayed until they were made to leave.
As Rijkaard's team crumbled, in a slow, poisonous decline rather than the high-speed crash that had killed Van Gaal's, Xavi held that particular truth close to his chest.
*
They lost the title on head-to-head results.
The president spoke of change, the manager of renewal. Xavi echoed them and tried to quieten the voice inside him that always knew, the one that said what we need is another revolution.
*
Right on cue, Pep was back, as if Xavi's rebellious thoughts had summoned him.
There was no great homecoming. He simply arrived and took up the B team job without fanfare, which just made the story-hungry media salivate more. Through all the bullshit of the late 90s, Pep was and always remained charismatic and interesting enough to sell papers. Now that his most determined detractors were out of the picture, he became a more powerful symbol than ever. Scandal-ridden and increasingly unpopular as he was, Laporta was probably well aware of that fact.
It was difficult not to wonder what Rijkaard made of it all. Or, on the flipside, what Pep thought he was doing taking up the thankless task of managing a B team in terrible shape who'd just been relegated to the Tercera Division.
It took all his self-control not to ask when he ran into Pep coming out of the press room.
"Welcome back," he said instead, because being polite was better than starting a conspiracy.
Pep's hand was firm on his shoulder, cool fingertips just brushing the back of his neck. He spoke into Xavi's ear, low and infinitely familiar. "Not quite yet. The house is in reasonable shape."
*
Sometimes, Xavi hated the part of him that had to know, the part that never stopped watching and always came up with an answer. He hated being right.
2007 had been a year of mishaps for Barca; a stumble for every three steps. 2008 turned out to be much, much worse.
When Xavi looked at Ronnie - when Ronnie actually showed up to be looked at - he saw the same detachment that wore Rivaldo and Patrick down, in the time before Rijkaard. When he looked at Rijkaard he saw a man whose life outside Barca had forced his focus away from a job that required tunnel vision.
Just like the time before, it was going to get worse before it got better.
*
Knowing didn't prepare him for what happened at the Clasico.
The worst part wasn't having to line up and applaud Real onto the pitch. It wasn't losing 4-1. It wasn't even getting sent off.
No, the worst part was looking Puyi in the eye at full time and seeing something close to resignation.
Xavi was 28 years old. He'd given 17 of those years to Barca - gladly, without reservation - and he'd happily give the next 17, if that was what the club needed. But not like this.
Some things were not to be borne.
*
The next few months were terrible. The only bright spark was Pep's appointment. No doubt political, no doubt meant to appease the fans (who might not have been content with just the sacking of Rijkaard right after the Clasico fiasco) but good news nevertheless.
It meant that when the inevitable rumours about Xavi being sold began, he could sit back and smile, and concentrate properly on doing well at the Euros.
After that, nobody talked about selling him anymore.
*
Xavi got an extended holiday that year, just like the other guys who'd been in the Euros. Trouble was, he wasn't sure he wanted one. By the time they got to Scotland for pre-season, the rest of the team was unrecognisable.
The playing staff hadn't changed that much, but the atmosphere had.
"You should have seen the first team talk," Gerard Pique said, wide-eyed. "I've never seen anything like it. And I've seen - you know. The mister in Manchester." He mimed a very animated, very angry man, until even Andres chuckled at his enthusiastic wind-milling.
With Gerard around, at least the locker room wouldn't be short of noise.
"What do they call it when he shouts - " Xavi snapped his fingers. "Ah, the hair-dryer, right?"
"Yeah, that. Pep doesn't shout, though. You'll see. He said he wanted to see you guys after training, and to grab Victor too." Gerard sketched a cheeky salute before turning away. "I'm off to see about Leo, he's in a bad way over the Olympics thing. See you."
When Xavi stole a quick glance sideways, Puyi was grinning. They were off to a good start.
*
After training, the three of them plus a confused Victor piled into the room Pep had turned into a temporary office. It had a very large desk, which was painfully tidy, a large office chair that Pep folded himself into, and a sofa barely big enough for three people. After a quick glance around, Xavi sat on the arm, because he was a big believer in saving everyone else trouble.
Victor raised an eyebrow, but he knew better than to comment. "You wanted to see us, boss?"
Pep leaned forward, propping his elbows on the desk. "I did. Let's talk about the cantera pact."
I knew it.
"Who told?" Xavi said, even as he met Puyi's eyes over Victor's head. "It was Lucho, wasn't it? He could never keep his mouth shut."
Pep returned his amused look, like they were old friends sharing a joke. The smile stayed in his eyes even after it left his lips. "That's not important. I just wanted you guys - you guys in particular - to know that I support you. I will support you all the way, in every way. We all believe in the project. Don't we?"
"It's hard to say it right now, after last season, but yeah. Of course," Puyi said slowly. There were nods all around.
Pep didn't look satisfied. He smiled again, sharp and hungry. "Last season there were mistakes. Without those mistakes, our way works. In fact, that's why we stick to it."
"It's too late to change, anyway. Not like we've got a big man to hit it up to," Victor said, softening the sting in the words with one of his big grins.
Xavi nudged him anyway, noting out of the corner of eye that Andres was doing the same on Victor's other side.
There's a reason for the way we play, the way we teach you all to play.
Whatever else he's learned in the years since that day at La Masia, Xavi never forgot. He was willing to bet none of the others had, either.
Andres' voice was soft but firm. "We believe in the system, Pep."
"I know you do. If you didn't, you wouldn't be here," Pep said lightly, with a warm, approving glance at Andres that instantly brought two spots of high colour onto his cheeks. "But this is a results-driven world. We need to earn the right to play, for our style to exist."
"Can't do that if we don't win," Puyi said quietly. He looked thoughtful, energised. Nowhere near the resigned, unhappy shell he'd been at the end of last season.
"Exactly," Pep said. "But think about it the other way around - what we're trying to do is validate the work that's been done here for twenty, thirty years in the eyes of the world. And we do that by proving that it can be successful, if you put everything into it. I want you all with me."
His voice changed as he went on, until it was ringing and clear and Xavi couldn't look away if he tried.
"Yes, boss."
Pep's hungry smile only got wider. "Things are going to change now. I promise you that."
*
Xavi was the last to leave. When he stood to follow Puyi, Andres and Victor out, Pep caught his arm with the hand that wasn't holding the door.
"Thank you."
"What for?"
For once, he was actually stumped.
"You know what," Pep said casually, as if he was missing the bloody obvious. "For not letting our house burn down. I was being very hard on you, to put that on your shoulders back then, but I only did it because you were capable."
Xavi couldn't think of what to say for the longest moment. Thank you? Apology accepted? Or maybe: how can anyone live the way you do?
In the end, honesty won out. "You haven't changed at all."
Pep looked surprised. Whatever he'd expected in response, it wasn't that. "You think? Is that good or bad?"
"It's... I don't know yet. You - God, Pep, you push so hard all the time, I'm not sure that's always the right thing."
The weight of Pep's arm around his shoulder felt familiar, almost comforting. When Xavi looked up, though, the look in his eyes was entirely new.
"You worry too much. I've learnt my lessons, Xavi. For forty years mismanagement and internal battles have held Barca back. If we have to control everything to prevent that, then that's what we'll do. There's been too much wasted potential. No more."
Laporta had no idea what he'd gotten himself into. Nor, to be fair, did anybody else. Xavi could only look forward to them finding out.
*
They lost Ronnie. Deco. Edmilson. Zambrotta. Thuram. Oleguer. Giovani. Almost Samuel too, until Pep changed his mind. The back room staff was almost totally new. Training methods, dining habits, even press access - everything changed.
It was a revolution, all right.
Puyi glared at him. "Oh, just fucking say it."
"I told you so, years ago, If I'm remembering it right," Xavi obliged, savouring each word. "Enjoy the bloodbath."
"The good kind. The necessary kind."
And that would be why he was captain. Because he said stuff like this and even meant it, and sincerity counted for something in the locker room. Outside, though, he wasn't going to be the one who sold it to the fans. Puyi was a believer, not an ideologue. That was Xavi's job.
Xavi said discipline at the club had suffered in the latter stages of Frank Rijkaard's reign as coach, but said said that new boss Pep Guardiola had managed to get the players back into line.
'They are two very different coaches,' he said. 'Rijkaard believes in self-regulation but that is almost impossible in a team like Barcelona where the players earn a lot of money and win a lot of trophies. In all collective activities there has to be order and discipline and that is what Guardiola has imposed.... As a coach he knows what he wants and he has got some very clear ideas.'
- Xavi: Ronaldinho paid price for lifestyle at Barca, August 2008
They lost their first game.
"What happened?" Pep began, after, his voice perfectly even.
Silence.
The same idiotic goddamn mistakes we made last season, Xavi thought. He knew better than to say it out loud.
"Come on, you all know. Soon as you got on that pitch, you forgot all about what we've been doing in training."
Forgot was a rather generous characterization of what had happened, all things considered. Xavi would have used a stronger word.
Pep still hadn't raised his voice. He didn't have to.
"This only works if you listen to me. I promise you, we will start winning - and do far more than that - but only if you return the trust I've placed in you. I expect to see you all pressing the same way in our next game as you did in training. Is that clear?"
"Yes, boss," a perfect, if subdued, chorus. Everywhere Xavi looked, he saw renewed determination on previously downcast faces.
He could only hope it was going to be enough.
*
Two days later, he knocked on the door to Pep's office after afternoon training.
"Come in!"
The room was painfully, meticulously neat, folders stacked perfectly on the desk that ate up most of the room, not a speck of dust on the large computer monitor.
Pep frowned at the bare walls. "When they finish working on the Ciutat Esportiva, I'm definitely going to have an office with a view."
"They're finally going to move us there?" Xavi said incredulously. He'd heard the rumours, but they were easily disregarded. It took guts for a Barca manager to institute closed training, and Pep was, after all, new and not yet secure in his position. And yet.
If we have to control everything to prevent that, then that's what we'll do.
He should have known better than to doubt.
Pep smiled. "It was a condition of my employment, as you probably already know. What did you want to see me about?"
Xavi sat down in front of the desk, feeling a bit like a pupil facing his school teacher. Which was novel for someone nearing thirty. "Are you okay?"
"Yes. I have no doubts. This is going to work, Xavi. Are you all right?"
Typical Pep, to turn that question around. And to be right about it too, damn him.
"No. I play too many safe passes."
Pep shook his head. "If I thought you were playing too many safe passes, then I'd tell you. So there's no problem. The whole game is in the palm of your hand, Xavi. You've always known how, somebody just had to give you the reins. Understand?"
Xavi nodded stiffly. "I'll try."
Pep reached across the desk and cupped his cheek with one long-fingered hand. His eyes were bright even in the dim light, and it was an act of will for Xavi to keep looking back.
"None of that. Frank was smart enough to let you run games with Deco. Well, now Deco's gone. You're not on your own - there's Andres alongside and Leo in front of you - but you're the one making us play."
He said it as if it was already true.
Xavi smiled despite himself. "You know, sometimes you really do scare me."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Pep said, chuckling. He patted Xavi's cheek before letting go.
"Xavi is a player who has the Barcelona DNA: someone who has the taste for good football, someone who is humble and someone who has loyalty to this club. From the first moment I saw him play, I knew he would become the brain behind Barcelona for many years to come. He plays very, very well, much better than I ever played even when I was at my best."
- Pep Guardiola, 2008
Xavi passed; Barca played. They won.
The Copa, the league, and then Rome, a night so perfect he had to keep pinching himself just to prove it was real.
A night when he looked across the pitch at the Olympic Stadium after the final whistle to see Pep grinning like a boy and knew that the same look of stunned happiness was mirrored on his own face.
Because they'd earned the right to play, and they'd done it right, almost to perfection, before the eyes of the whole world, and they'd won.
*
The club made them come in to take pictures with the trophies before jetting off on holiday, which was just about the least onerous duty Xavi could think of. It gave him an excuse to show up and pester Pep, anyway.
"Can I talk to you?"
"Always. Let's go to my office."
Just as he'd said, Pep had a room with a view at the Ciutat Esportiva. It was a much nicer space than the badly lit box in the bowls of Camp Nou that had served as his previous office. Floor to ceiling windows. He could easily watch training from here, if he didn't feel like going outside.
"Very nice."
"I think so. The windows are a clever touch. This way anyone can see who I'm talking to at any point, see?" Pep's mouth curved into a smirk. "It makes people less nervous."
There was a time - a long, long time ago - when Xavi wouldn't have known why that was funny. A few years ago, he might not have given any indication that he knew.
"Do you think I was too quiet, before?"
Pep considered it for a good minute. "I think - I think your prudence has served you well. If I'd been wise enough to be less mouthy back then, I'd have had much less trouble."
Self-deprecating, a little amused, inviting Xavi to laugh with him.
He couldn't, not right then. "You're principled. That shouldn't be a bad thing."
"It's possible to be principled without shouting about it," Pep said gently. "Your own way, Xavi. Not mine, not anyone else's."
That much was true. Xavi nodded. "I stopped trying to live up to you years ago. It was too exhausting."
Pep's smile gained a bittersweet twist. "I'm just a person, you know."
"No, you're not. Not to me, not to any Cule."
El mite - the nickname itself said it all. Even those who mocked him with it had to admit that it was a double-edged sword. By using it they themselves built the myth.
"That's not helpful," Pep said quietly.
"Sometimes." The symbol would always be a symbol, but he was a man, too, and Xavi owed him that. "Pep, I do actually know that you're a human being. I do now, anyway. I'm sorry about before."
"Apology unnecessary and therefore not accepted." He held up a hand when Xavi opened his mouth to argue the point. "You know, sometimes I think about moving to a house by the sea with shelves full of books, somewhere really, really isolated, and just staying there for a few years. Maybe longer."
Xavi pictured it: the house, the beach, the silence. It would be lovely. Then he tried to picture Pep actually being there. "That'd never work. You need a life of blood and thunder like a fish needs water."
Pep laughed, surprised. "Mm. Maybe. You're the same."
"No way. I'm not getting back into this again once I'm done, no matter how much they pay me."
"What, you're going to sit at home?" Pep said teasingly. "You'd be bored to death."
"I'd be relieved to be out of it, you mean."
Unlike Pep, he could picture himself just helping out around the house, playing fetch with his dog and watching endless games of football. How long it would last, that he wasn't sure about.
"For the first two weeks, maybe. You couldn't be happy watching from the sidelines. Not Barca."
"Maybe. I've still got time. I'll figure something out."
Xavi was 30 years old when he pulled on the blaugrana shirt for the 550th time. He'd spent two thirds of his life in the shadow of the Camp Nou, and he couldn't imagine spending the rest of it anywhere else. It was his.
"For me, Barca is unconditional. Let's just say that I'm playing at Arsenal, at Manchester, at Bayern Munich. I'd constantly be asking myself, "What's happening at Barca?" I'd be paying attention to what's going on, who's playing, what they are doing, how they are doing - I love this club, I love it. And so do [my family]. That's how we've grown up. And that's the big difference. I mean, look, I've always said, I won't leave Barca until they throw me out on the street. I won't leave. I won't."
- Xavi, Xavi 550, 2011
Notes:
1. A lot of the background in this fic comes from the documentary Xavi 550, produced by Televisió de Catalunya.
2. Xavi's father was a professional footballer. His siblings Alex, Oscar and Ariadna all play too.
3. Names mentioned:
- Luis Garcia Sanz: product of La Masia, once of Liverpool, he of the famous 'ghost goal' against Chelsea.
- Quique Costas: has been involved with FC Barcelona in some capacity since 1970, both as a player and a manager at La Masia, including three separate stints in charge of Barca B.
- Louis van Gaal: manager of Barcelona from 1998 to 2000 and from 2002 to 2003. Famously abrasive, his time as Barca boss was full of clashes with top players and the local press.
- Rivaldo: the last great Barca no.10 before Messi and Ronaldinho. Clashed repeatedly with van Gaal.
- Luis Figo: fan favourite and vice captain who joined Real Madrid in 2000 in one of the most shocking transfers ever. His departure sparked off a decline at Barca that was only arrested by a total revolution in 2003.
- Luis 'Lucho' Enrique: fan favourite who joined Barca from Real Madrid in 1996.
- Sergi Barjuan: one of La Masia's first success stories. Locker room heavy-weight alongside Luis Enrique, Guardiola and Abelardo.
- Llorenc Serra Ferrer: Barca manager after van Gaal's first firing. Commonly seen as ineffective and unable to control the strong personalities in his locker room.
- Carles 'Puyi' Puyol: voted club captain unanimously by the first team squad in 2004. Still there, still amazing.
- Joan Laporta: elected Barca president in 2003 on the back of what began as a protest candidacy against the reign of Joan Gaspart, ushering in an era of change.
- Other names: Gerard Lopez, Gabri Garcia, Thiago Motta, Oleguer Presas, Sergio Garcia, Giovani dos Santos (all La Masia graduates); Ronaldinho 'Ronnie' Gaucho, Gianluca Zambrotta, Lilian Thuram, Samuel Eto'o, Ludovic Giuly, (key foreign players from Rijkaard's Barca); Patrick Kluviert.
4. Barca youth structure, from the top: Barcelona B, (Barcelona C, later disbanded), Juvenil A and B (16-18 year olds), Cadet A and Cadet B (14-15 year olds), and so on.
5. Barca in the post-Cruyff era (after 1996) was defined by conflict between Cruyffistas and anti-Cruyffistas throughout the entire structure of the club, from the directors on down. The most prominent members of the first team were inevitably dragged into this conflict. Pep Guardiola's status as an outspoken advocate of Catalanism and Barca's place in promoting Catalanism only made him a bigger target.
6. Xavi made his debut in a Spanish Super Cup game against Mallorca in August 1998 in which he also scored his first goal.
7. It's been made very clear by both parties that Pep and Xavi, although they are professionally speaking the perfect collaborators, do not have a personal relationship. They're very different people, for one; and I suspect the circumstances surrounding their early acquaintance played a part too. From the first they were being pitted against each other by people who wanted to bring Guardiola down, which in turn made the other side attack Xavi.
8. Pep had several reoccurring injuries starting from 1998 that plagued him for almost all of his remaining time at Barca. During his long absences, wild rumours circulated about why he wasn't getting better. Unfortunately, people really did allege that he'd contracted HIV (as an additive to the rumours and speculation surrounding his sexuality). I'm not making that up.
9. Xavi really did have a credible offer from Milan when he was very young.
10. maqui ('the machine' in Catalan) is Guardiola's name (or title, if you prefer) for Xavi.
11. Pep Guardiola left Barca in 2001, exhausted (and I think somewhat disillusioned) from the years of infighting and self-sabotage that had come before. The collapse that had began with the departure of Figo continued, and Barca didn't win a single trophy between 2001 and 2005.
12. Xavi scored the winning goal in the 2004 Clasico at the Bernabeu, the game which many saw as the passing of the torch from the Galacticos to Rijkaard's team. They finally won the league again the following season, after 5 years in the wilderness.
13. Xavi suffered an ACL injury during 05-06, as a result of which he missed the entire second half of the season, including the Champions League final.
14. Barca lost the 06-07 title to Real on head-to-head results (having drawn the Clasico at the Camp Nou 3-3 and lost the one at the Bernabeu 2-0).
15. The season after that they contrived to finish third. Barca's problems that season stemmed from a mixture of player indiscipline and a manager who was going through a personal crisis and couldn't focus on football. Real clinched the title early enough that Barca had to give them a guard of honour when they visited the Bernabeu, in the infamous 4-1 during which Xavi was sent off in stoppage time. Frank Rijkaard was sacked after this game.
16. Guardiola became manager of Barca B in 2007, when they had just been relegated to the Spanish equivalent of the Fourth Division. His team topped the regional table and were promoted without a hitch that season, featuring players such as Pedro and Sergi Busquets.
17. El mite ('the myth' in Catalan) is an old nickname of Guardiola's from his playing days. It's meant half in jest - the man who's surely too good to be true - but I've seen it used seriously, as in the 2009 El Pais headline Pep, Symbol; Pep, Myth.
18. Pep ushered in a wide range of changes when he became first team manager in 2008. Some of these changes were ones he'd made a condition of his employment. The use of the Ciutat Esportiva (a new state of the art training complex with controlled media access) was widely rumoured to be one of them. The rest, as they say, is history.
19. By making his 550th appearance for Barca, Xavi broke the record set by club legend Migueli. He is now the record holder for number of appearances made in a Barca shirt, a record he continues to extend with each game.
20. Title from Run by Snow Patrol.
Feedback is adored.
"Xavi did not seem to want to become a Catalan hero like Guardiola. He did not do the things that get footballers headlines, like squabbling or being transferred or scoring lots of goals. He never spoke much. At 5ft 7in tall, he was no superhero. All he did was hit passes, left to right, up and down, like someone filling in a crossword puzzle at top speed."
- Simon Kuper, Financial Times
Xavi was born a footballer, just like his brothers and sister and his father before him.
When he was six years old his father saw him look up with the ball at his feet, measuring out the pass before he made it, and knew that he was different to the rest.
The rest of the family loved football, but it was an infatuation they could only nurse from afar; Xavi's affections were returned.
*
When Xavi was ten years old, his father took him to La Masia. He didn't say anything different in the car, just the usual have fun and do your best like any other day, like Xavi wasn't going to be playing on the same pitch that Guardiola and Amor once ran on. Like there was nothing more than a game of football at stake.
Once he started playing, though, it did feel just like any other game. Terrassa, Barcelona, it didn't really matter. When Xavi got the ball, he always knew what to do with it.
An old man with enormous eyebrows tapped him on the shoulder as he was walking off to change after the game. "Hey. Stay behind for a moment."
"Yes, sir."
The old man had bright, shrewd eyes and a kind smile. Xavi had to fight the urge to square his shoulders. He stayed very still and made himself look up.
"You stayed behind with the centerbacks when everyone else was attacking, every single time. Why was that?"
Too obvious, surely. But the mister didn't look like the type to ask trick questions. "If we all attack, it's easy for the other team to score."
The old man's eyes crinkled at the corners. "Good answer. What's your name, kid?"
"Xavi, from Terrassa."
"Well, Xavi from Terrassa, would you like to play for Barca?"
The words tumbled out of his mouth like he'd been waiting to say them forever.
"Yes. Yes, of course. Yes, I would."
*
Keep the ball. Circulate.
The names and faces of his team mates changed every year. Some years he ended up being the last kid standing in his age group, and that was tough.
There was only one constant.
Receive, pass, offer.
He watched. He listened. He passed.
*
The first time Xavi saw Pep Guardiola, across a room instead of on TV or from the Camp Nou stands, he couldn't do anything but stare.
He wasn't the only one, either. The dining room - normally filled with the noise of a hundred hungry, chatty kids devouring their food as quickly as possible in the gaps between conversations - was dead silent.
Beside him, Luis finally succeeded in tearing his eyes away, only to turn an accusing look on Xavi. "You knew about this, didn't you? You always know. And you didn't tell me?"
Luis had a curious, touching belief in Xavi's infallibility, stemming from his first days at La Masia, when Xavi had looked him up and down and said Luis Garcia from Badalona, right?
(It was true that he made it his business to know everyone coming and going at Barca, but he couldn't cover everything.)
"Definitely not scheduled," Xavi whispered back. "Guess he just wanted to see us."
If Pep felt like visiting La Masia and sitting down to dinner with the kids, who was going to say no?
Up front, the man himself grinned and spread his hands, taking in the entire room. He looked much smaller in person, like a stiff breeze could blow him away. "Don't let me keep you from your food. Pretend I'm not here, if it helps."
"I don't think that's possible, Pep." By the appalled looks on everyone's faces, they all thought it, but Mr Costas was the only one there who could have said it. "You might as well talk. Let the kids know why you're here, I bet they're all wondering what they've done to earn a visit."
"I like it here. It's my home. Earlier today I watched Juvenil A play Espanyol. A great game, very exciting. Watching you guys play reminds me what we're here for."
Xavi sat up straighter. Pep watched him play? Pep watched him play in the position he'd mastered, with his number 4 on his back, and approved?
He didn't realize his hand was shaking until Luis covered it with his own. Up front, Pep smiled. His big brown eyes gleamed, and his voice rose, holding the entire room spell-bound.
"There's a reason for the way we play, the way we teach you all to play. Because you have a responsibility to Catalunya, to the fans, to play this way. That's not old fashioned, it's not past tense. It's now, and for as long as you wear this shirt. Don't think of it as a burden. Think of it as a privilege, because it is. If you've made it this far, it absolutely is."
For a moment, Xavi could have sworn Pep was looking straight at him, that the words and the smile were for him alone.
"Now eat, you've all got homework to do."
*
Luis was sulking again. Getting demoted back to Juvenil A after a B team call-up was never fun, but Xavi knew better than to let it onto his face. Luis couldn't seem to help himself.
"Sometimes I think I'm never gonna make it."
"Not with that attitude, anyway," Xavi said lightly, earning an elbow to the ribs for his trouble.
Luis buried his face in Xavi's shoulder. His words came out muffled. "Honesty isn't always helpful. That was one of those times, man."
"I'm sorry. What was I supposed to say?" Xavi shrugged with a nonchalance that he didn't feel. "Everyone knows how tough the process is. We all have the same slim chance."
By getting B team call-ups, both of them had already won the lottery. They'd outlasted most of their peers and were in with a chance at getting into the first team, depending on the attitude of the manager. That was all anyone could hope for.
Luis raised his head and gave him the sweetly patronizing, indulgent look of a grandmother. "You know that's not true. You make all of us play better, Xavi. Someone will see that eventually."
"I don't know about that."
With Van Gaal in charge, and Pep in the prime of his career, Xavi wasn't sure he'd be going anywhere anytime soon.
*
Then Pep got injured. He didn't get better, not for the whole season, and there were all kinds of rumours about why; things Xavi had never thought he'd hear said about any footballer, let alone Pep Guardiola. Things that made him wish he wasn't addicted to knowing.
Pep was still injured at the end of the season. He had another operation, and some papers said he'd never play again.
When Xavi got his first call-up to the senior side soon after, he didn't know what to feel.
*
Van Gaal had a way of looking down his nose at someone that made them feel like dirt. It took Xavi a few weeks of first team training to figure out that it wasn't deliberate. Or least it wasn't just him. Even Rivaldo and Figo got the same look. Luis Enrique, who Xavi liked a great deal (call me Lucho, kid) was so used to it he just grinned back.
(When he really didn't like someone, Van Gaal did far more than just stare at them disdainfully. Xavi saw enough press conferences to know that.)
The way he was being examined now was new.
"Hey, kid. You're starting tomorrow."
Xavi took back every bad thought he'd ever had about the man.
"Yes, boss," he said, finally. His voice only shook a little.
Van Gaal's eyes narrowed. "Problem?"
"No, boss."
It was only the moment he'd been waiting for all his life, ever since he understood what it meant to aspire to something.
"Don't fuck up," Van Gaal said gruffly, with something that was almost a smile. "I'm betting on you."
He patted Xavi on the head before walking away.
*
Before kick-off, Lucho wrapped his arms around his middle and squeezed until he stopped shaking.
"You okay, kid?"
He couldn't breathe, could hardly stand, his head felt like it was going to explode - and he loved it.
(Later, when he thought back to that day, it seemed as if he'd given up on sanity then and never looked back.)
Xavi took a deep breath; let it out. "I'm fine. I'm great."
Then they kicked off, and it was the same game as always.
The ball came to him just outside the box as if on a string, and he knew precisely what was going to happen before it did.
The rush of seeing the ball in the back of the net from his strike still knocked him breathless.
*
"You're back with the B team from tomorrow."
What did I do? You need a midfielder, I know you need -
Xavi was a good kid who never mouthed off. It was enough for him to know, and not to speak.
"Okay, boss."
*
Two weeks later, he was back, and wishing he wasn't. If it was as simple as playing football, he could do that, he was even very good at it. But confirming with his own eyes and ears that the rumours of infighting in the papers had some foundation, that some of the people he was training with were undoubtedly leaking those rumours - that was an additional layer he didn't want or need.
(He found himself wondering how Pep coped with being at the eye of the storm all this time. How anyone could.)
Van Gaal had a voice like a drill sergeant, especially when he was shouting orders in training. "You know what they're going to say if you do that tomorrow? 'That kid, he's terrible, Guardiola would never have missed that pass.' I want - and you should want - to make them forget Guardiola's name."
No, that's not what I want at all.
Xavi had to suppress a shudder, and then a wince when he saw Sergi's face darken in reaction to Van Gaal's frankly appalling attempt at motivation.
Good job convincing the senior players that you aren't interested in forcing Pep out. Sir.
"I'll do better, boss."
Van Gaal nodded. "Right. Don't forget it."
Fortunately, Rivaldo decided to pick a fight about playing out wide just then, and Xavi could take a breather.
He jumped when Lucho's hand landed on his shoulder. "You okay, kid? Sorry things are so fucked up around here. We know you don't think like that."
"Yeah, I'm fine. Thank you."
Even if he wasn't, no one needed to know. They had enough to worry about.
"You sure?"
"Please tell Pep that - that I hope he can play again soon," Xavi said, all in a rush, not daring to look at Lucho until he was done.
Lucho winked. "Message received. Will do, kid."
"...I was put in a face-off with Pep and that was my misfortune."
- Xavi, Xavi 550
Xavi vs Pep was all over the press within the week. Xavi couldn't even find it in himself to be surprised. It wasn't Van Gaal, and it probably wasn't anyone in the squad, but he knew as well as anyone that Pep had enemies within the club and that he'd just become a pawn in an ever dirtier battle, against a man he never wanted to hurt.
When asked about the comparisons, he could only say that it was an honour to be associated with Pep, which was at least the honest truth. What he couldn't say was that despite Pep's own best attempts at defusing the rising tension, the thought of the path he'd been set on scared him like nothing else.
If he kept walking it as the boy who had come to replace Pep Guardiola, there was only one possible destination.
"I love you," Xavi whispered, to the beautifully maintained pitch, the towering stands, the crisp night air.
I love you, but -
*
" - I don't know if I can deal with this," he said quietly.
His father slammed on the brakes and steered the car into the next available parking spot.
"We've had calls. From Milan."
Xavi exhaled. Gave himself permission to consider it. Could he really leave? It was possible. He was probably good enough, and if he couldn't stay at Barca, Milan was a great alternative, the kind of opportunity that most people couldn't even dream of. He pictured himself in the black and red stripes. The sky didn't fall. Outside, the evening rush hour traffic sped by.
When he could look his father in the eye again, he found the same endless patience and understanding there as always.
Xavi smiled despite himself. "Dad. Come on, let's go home. I'm hungry."
*
A week later, he still had no idea what he was going to do. The Milan offer - unofficial, but ready to become official as soon as he showed interest - was generous. More than generous, for someone young and unproven.
"Hey, maqui. I want to talk to you."
Xavi snapped his head up at the sound of that unmistakable voice, speaking Catalan with a ringing confidence that carried.
"Hey, Pep. How are you feeling?"
The last time Xavi saw him, he'd dropped in on training to talk to Van Gaal about his fitness, and seemed to be bearing up reasonably well.
"Better," Pep said flatly. "Take a walk with me."
Xavi looked around. Training finished twenty minutes ago. The last photographers and journalists had gone. Whatever this was about, it wasn't meant to be a performance. He nodded and stood.
Up close, Pep looked thin and haggard. His eyes were the same, huge and intense, but now they seemed much too big for his features.
"So, I've been hearing some rumours about you."
Xavi stopped walking. "What rumours?"
I swear I have nothing to do with those idiots who are determined to destroy you. I would never -
Pep leaned in close enough to whisper. "Milan's nice this time of the year."
"I don't - " Xavi jerked away, wide-eyed. "How did you know?"
"Friends in strange places?" Pep shrugged. "Anyway, that's not the point. You can't leave."
He said it as if it was a law of the universe. Xavi bristled despite himself. "Says who? I'm not necessary."
He flushed as soon as the words were out of his mouth, horrified at speaking his mind at the worst possible moment, but Pep just smiled, crooked and affectionate.
"Don't be silly. You are Barca. Or you will be."
"I don't understand," Xavi said slowly.
Pep made an impatient noise. "Yes, you do, you just prefer not to. Open your eyes, and keep looking. You have to see everything."
See everything, like Pep did, even when he obviously didn't want to, and become the person everyone looked to when they had no idea what to do? The mere idea was - incredible, unbearable.
Xavi thought he understood, then.
Pep and Barca had a remarkably unhealthy, all-encompassing relationship. And somewhere in his romantic's heart, Pep probably knew it. It was admirable, and beautiful, and it scared Xavi to death. He never wanted to be like that.
"What if I can't?" he said, finally, in a shaky whisper.
Pep cupped Xavi's face with his big hands, holding him still. Tilted his head up until it was all he could do to look up into those bright eyes.
"One day, you won't know where you end and all this begins, and it'll be good. It'll be the best thing you've ever felt. Don't tell me you can turn that down. Nobody can."
*
"Let's put it to a vote," Xavi said, when all he really wanted to do was lay his head down on the dinner table and forget about Barca and Milan and hard decisions for a while.
He was a grown-up, he could deal.
"All right. All in favour?"
Alex and Oscar's hands went up immediately. Xavi stared at his parents' hands twined together on the table, bit his lip, and dug his nails into his thighs.
Slowly, very slowly, his father raised his unoccupied hand.
"We're tied," his mother said with steel in her voice. "Xavi, you decide."
Don't tell me you can turn that down.
Xavi put his hands down flat on the table so they wouldn't shake. "I don't want to go."
His father sighed. "Just think who you've got in front of you at Barca. That's not a person you're up against. That's a symbol. You can't win."
Open your eyes, and keep looking.
Pep had maybe two, three years left before burnout finished him. Someone had to be there for - for afterwards.
"No. Pep isn't - he - I don't care." Xavi straightened and looked everyone in the eye, one by one: his father, his mother, Alex, Oscar, Ariadna. "It doesn't feel right. I'm not going."
Ariadna's brows smoothed out. Her smile was fiercely proud. "Then it's decided. Xavi stays."
*
Things changed between Xavi and Pep after that. They didn't talk much more, but when they did, everything was clearer. Xavi made it a point to sit next to Pep whenever they were going to be seen in public together. There wasn't much else he could do about the rumours other than denying them every five minutes, and putting on a united front was always important.
They went down to La Masia and watched Cadet A hammer Sabadell in between signing autographs and getting their picture taken with some of the parents who'd come to watch. Pep sailed through it all with a veneer of professionalism so thick that Xavi was almost convinced he hadn't read the papers this morning.
He understood more than ever why Mr Costas used to say, "you all need to learn from Pep off the pitch, that's almost more important that what you learn from him on it."
After it was all over, Pep gave Xavi a barely there smile that was more real than anything else he'd seen that day.
"The child who made the telling pass for the first goal - "
"Andres Iniesta," Xavi said, because he could never resist giving the right answer. "He stood out."
Pep's smile widened. "Exactly. Years from now, we'll be watching him play. Don't you think?"
"He's a bit on the skinny side," Xavi said sardonically, striving for the tone of the scouts who'd told him he was not really built for football, yes?
Pep understood him right away. He'd probably been told the same thing himself, once upon a time.
"That's a very funny joke. You're going to retire me, maqui - don't argue, you know you are - but this child is going to retire us both."
*
Everything happened too fast. One moment, Pep and Figo were standing side by side on the balcony of the City Hall, arms raised in triumph, the Liga trophy gleaming before them, and the next - well. Figo was gone, the less said about that the better, and Pep was fighting a losing battle.
Normally that part of it wasn't so alarming. Pep had been fighting the club management - or large chunks of it - for years, mostly against his will if Xavi was any judge. No, that was just part of life. That was Barca. But Pep's contract was up at the end of the season, and he looked so tired every time he let his guard down, as if -
As if he was about to give up.
It was April, and Pep still hadn't signed a new deal. The part of Xavi that always knew, even when he didn't want to, figured that he wasn't going to sign at all.
Sure enough, a few days later, Pep slung an arm around his shoulder and led him away after training. He waited until Xavi was comfortably seated before speaking.
"I'm going to call a press conference for two days from now."
He sounded flat, detached. Like he was talking about somebody else.
Xavi grabbed Pep's arm just above the wrist and dug his fingers in. "Pep, you can't do this to us. If you leave now, it's just going to get worse. Do you really think Serra Ferrer can hold the locker room together?"
His grip was tight enough to bruise. Pep didn't even seem to notice.
"No. He can't, because I've been doing it." Pep tilted his chin up, finally looking Xavi in the eye for the first time that day, and part of Xavi immediately wished he hadn't. "Do you think I've gone too far, this past year? Gotten too obsessed with control?"
His voice came close to cracking on the last word. Xavi, who had never before felt capable of warmth towards a man he only knew how to admire from a far (that's not a person you're up against; that's a symbol), felt a sharp pain in his chest.
"Pep, they spread rumours about you having to retire because you contracted HIV. I think anything you do at this point is justified."
Pep laughed like the crack of a whip. "Who's they? You don't know, do you? The most difficult thing these past five years has been not knowing who the enemy is. I'm tired."
"You can't leave," Xavi said. He didn't care if he sounded desperate. No one else was listening, and Pep would understand why. "Please."
Pep covered Xavi's hand with his own. "I'm sorry for that. And sorrier that I'm leaving you such a mess to clean up." He paused, closed his eyes, took a deep breath. When he opened them again, he was smiling. Sharp-edged and painful, but still a smile. "Part of me wants to say 'we might as well let it all burn down'. But I'll only say it to you."
Open your eyes, and keep looking.
Xavi nodded. "I - I understand."
"Stay. Keep the house from burning down, please. When I come back, I want to see everything still intact."
"...when everything is going well this is the best club in the world, but when things go bad and they get the white hankies out and whistle, what do you do? You go home and you don't leave the house. You Do. Not. Leave."
- Cesc Fabregas, FourFourTwo, January 2012
Just as he'd expected, the next two years were bad.
The locker room was a total mess, with fights every second week; there were more and more people saying bit small for a midfielder, isn't he? when they commented on his performances; the Camp Nou was only half filled for most games, and then only with angry, whistling fans, a sea of white hankies whenever he looked up; the papers sneering at their victories and pouncing with glee on the increasingly frequent defeats - all of it built up until Xavi was sure there had to be a limit somewhere to the misery.
(He thought of Pep saying keep the house from burning down and wanted to fly to Italy just to shout at him, what do I do when our own fans, our own people, are holding the torches and pitchforks?)
Lucho and Puyi and Cocu did the best they could, all the while knowing it wasn't enough. It was all they could do to keep their heads above the water, some days.
"Smile, Puyi. People are looking," Xavi said. Some day they were going to have a manager strong enough to institute closed training, but he couldn't see it happening any time soon without an uproar. So: smiling for the camera.
Puyi tried valiantly and ended up with something more like a grimace. "I'm never going to get used to this."
There was a time when Xavi used to think that too.
"Do you ever think about leaving?"
Puyi looked at him as if he'd asked him to cut his hair. "We're passing through the desert. It's not - leaving would be - it feels wrong. Anything I can do right now, I have to try."
"That's why we need you," Xavi said. "To direct us out of the desert."
He was smiling as he said it, which meant Puyi would take it for a joke. Even though he was dead serious.
Right on cue, Puyi shrugged self-deprecatingly. "Me? I'm just shouting aimlessly, hoping someone'll hear."
"The fans see that. They'll remember how you tried."
When times were bad, they clung onto any sign of conspicuous effort. The Camp Nou loved Puyi.
Puyi shook his head violently. "I don't want at least he tried on my gravestone, Xavi."
*
"...that Xavi, he's a cancer in the locker room - "
His mother pulled the plug on the radio like she wanted to beat someone over the head with it.
"I'm sorry, love," she said.
"What for?"
"Telling you to stay."
Xavi grinned. He didn't even have to fake it. "No, don't be. It'll be better next season."
His mother didn't look convinced, but she hadn't heard the rumours yet. There were going to be big changes soon. About time, too.
In about 2003, Barcelona's local boys sat down together and noted that they had won no big prizes. They resolved to stop tolerating selfish stars. Instead, they themselves would rule the side.
- Simon Kuper, Financial Times
Laporta won the election. The change of regime was more than welcome, but it wasn't going to be enough, not for Xavi and Puyi and those who remained after the new boss' initial clear-out.
It was Lucho's idea to call a meeting of all the players from the cantera. He let Xavi run it, though, since he wasn't technically one of them. There were more of them now than Xavi could ever remember, certainly during his time in the first team. Him, Puyi, Gerard, Gabri, Luis, Thiago, Andres, Victor, Oleguer, Sergio...together, they made up almost half the squad.
Xavi wasn't the most senior, but he'd been around the longest, and no one questioned it when he spoke up.
"I think we all agree that we've had two or three bad years."
Murmurs of agreement. Someone - probably Gabri or Luis - snorted.
"Changes have to be made. We can't let things keep going as they are."
He knew. He'd always known, and always believed, and believed all the more because he'd been constantly tested and stopped to consider but what if we're wrong every single time.
"We need to take charge. It's no use sitting around waiting for things to get better every single time, waiting for some saviour to come and make us a team again."
"What do you want us to do?" Andres asked, very solemnly.
"We have to take responsibility. Make it ours."
*
Frank Rijkaard was a breath of fresh air after years of alternating between tyrants and kindly old men who could only stare helplessly when something went wrong. He was constantly smiling, easy-going to a fault, and Xavi might have suspected him of being too nice to manage if it hadn't been for the methodical clean-out of the locker room he'd done as soon as he was appointed.
He'd picked out the main malcontents without ever seeing the squad interact and put them on the transfer list without any hesitation. Clearly, not a man to be underestimated, despite his absent-minded geniality. On top of that, Xavi still remembered what he'd been like as a player. There was a hard center hidden in there somewhere.
It was just hard to find said center when he looked at Xavi like that. "Do you think you'd enjoy playing further forward?"
"Possibly. I've done it before, in the youth teams," Xavi said cautiously. "If you want me to, I'll give it a go."
"I do. Ronnie needs space to do his magic, he needs a platform. You're in charge of that now."
Xavi stared. "You really think I can do this."
Rijkaard smiled then, the gentle affection in his eyes giving him the look of a kid in an imposing man's body. "Xavi Hernandez, you've nothing to prove. Go on. Make the team play."
*
When he scored off Ronnie's pass at the Bernabeu, he felt it sink like a knife into the tender heart of the Galacticos. The (beautiful, overwhelming) welcome they got at the airport in Barcelona only confirmed it: that goal, that result, changed everything.
They'd taken a season to recover. Next, they'd consolidate. It was time for Barca to win again.
*
Xavi didn't see Puyi in the off-season until half way through, when they both had to turn up at a sponsor event, and Puyi's impressive commitment to suffering with a smile made Xavi determined to cheer him up while they were waiting.
"I hear Cocu's not coming back. The armband is yours, captain."
"Bit early. Vote's not happening for months," Puyi mumbled, looking anywhere but up.
Xavi laughed. "The vote's a formality. Everyone's decided to support you. Really, we decided long before now."
"But - " Puyi cut himself off viciously. He gave Xavi a narrow-eyed look and gestured at the crowd next door. "You know I'm not good at the media stuff."
Xavi looped his arm through the crook of Puyi's and gave him his brightest smile. "Don't worry. You've got me."
*
He kept his promise when the season started.
Some things were the same as always. Xavi passed. But the ending was different now, with Rijkaard, with this new team: Xavi passed, and Barca won.
It wasn't the first time he'd raised a trophy, although it was the first time he felt like he earned it. Him, Ronnie, Samuel, Deco, Puyi, and everyone else.
They were out of the desert.
*
Then he felt his knee go on the training ground.
The months after that were the hardest of his career. He'd never had an injury that bad, and the enforced absence - from training, from the ball - was unbearable.
He missed Barca. What he hadn't quite grasped was how his absence had given it a chance to miss him, the boy who had always been there, the boy they'd taken for granted, not callously but with the sort of distant fondness reserved for a dependable sort. When the Camp Nou chanted his name as one as he warmed up, five months later, his legs wanted to buckle.
In their roars, he finally heard we love you too.
*
The first time Xavi met Leo Messi he'd been astonished by the kid's talent, but only that. La Masia produced many talented young players, and it was anyone's guess whether a timid little Argentinean would turn into a Barca player.
He never imagined that the Camp Nou would be looking to the same kid to carry their team on his fragile shoulders only a few years later; that this kid, small even by Barca standards, still quiet and self-conscious, was capable of the kind of cold determination that enabled him to leave the warmth of his fading mentors and older brothers behind and do what he had to do.
Somehow, Xavi could see the heavy crown that had sapped so many at Barca, and which was now sitting rather uneasily on Ronnie's head, fitting him perfectly, and he wasn't the only one.
After one particularly ridiculous game, Giuly all but smothered Leo with a long hug in the locker room, giving him a look halfway between rueful and fond when he finally let go.
"You're gonna force me out of here, kid. And you know what? I don't even care. Just promise you'll keep it up."
Leo's cheeks were flushed, but his eyes were clear. "As long as they let me. I promise."
He was completely different from Xavi in almost every sense, except the one that mattered most. They both understood what it meant to be the ones who had to stay and keep going - long after those who could just pack up and leave had gone - and who stayed until they were made to leave.
As Rijkaard's team crumbled, in a slow, poisonous decline rather than the high-speed crash that had killed Van Gaal's, Xavi held that particular truth close to his chest.
*
They lost the title on head-to-head results.
The president spoke of change, the manager of renewal. Xavi echoed them and tried to quieten the voice inside him that always knew, the one that said what we need is another revolution.
*
Right on cue, Pep was back, as if Xavi's rebellious thoughts had summoned him.
There was no great homecoming. He simply arrived and took up the B team job without fanfare, which just made the story-hungry media salivate more. Through all the bullshit of the late 90s, Pep was and always remained charismatic and interesting enough to sell papers. Now that his most determined detractors were out of the picture, he became a more powerful symbol than ever. Scandal-ridden and increasingly unpopular as he was, Laporta was probably well aware of that fact.
It was difficult not to wonder what Rijkaard made of it all. Or, on the flipside, what Pep thought he was doing taking up the thankless task of managing a B team in terrible shape who'd just been relegated to the Tercera Division.
It took all his self-control not to ask when he ran into Pep coming out of the press room.
"Welcome back," he said instead, because being polite was better than starting a conspiracy.
Pep's hand was firm on his shoulder, cool fingertips just brushing the back of his neck. He spoke into Xavi's ear, low and infinitely familiar. "Not quite yet. The house is in reasonable shape."
*
Sometimes, Xavi hated the part of him that had to know, the part that never stopped watching and always came up with an answer. He hated being right.
2007 had been a year of mishaps for Barca; a stumble for every three steps. 2008 turned out to be much, much worse.
When Xavi looked at Ronnie - when Ronnie actually showed up to be looked at - he saw the same detachment that wore Rivaldo and Patrick down, in the time before Rijkaard. When he looked at Rijkaard he saw a man whose life outside Barca had forced his focus away from a job that required tunnel vision.
Just like the time before, it was going to get worse before it got better.
*
Knowing didn't prepare him for what happened at the Clasico.
The worst part wasn't having to line up and applaud Real onto the pitch. It wasn't losing 4-1. It wasn't even getting sent off.
No, the worst part was looking Puyi in the eye at full time and seeing something close to resignation.
Xavi was 28 years old. He'd given 17 of those years to Barca - gladly, without reservation - and he'd happily give the next 17, if that was what the club needed. But not like this.
Some things were not to be borne.
*
The next few months were terrible. The only bright spark was Pep's appointment. No doubt political, no doubt meant to appease the fans (who might not have been content with just the sacking of Rijkaard right after the Clasico fiasco) but good news nevertheless.
It meant that when the inevitable rumours about Xavi being sold began, he could sit back and smile, and concentrate properly on doing well at the Euros.
After that, nobody talked about selling him anymore.
*
Xavi got an extended holiday that year, just like the other guys who'd been in the Euros. Trouble was, he wasn't sure he wanted one. By the time they got to Scotland for pre-season, the rest of the team was unrecognisable.
The playing staff hadn't changed that much, but the atmosphere had.
"You should have seen the first team talk," Gerard Pique said, wide-eyed. "I've never seen anything like it. And I've seen - you know. The mister in Manchester." He mimed a very animated, very angry man, until even Andres chuckled at his enthusiastic wind-milling.
With Gerard around, at least the locker room wouldn't be short of noise.
"What do they call it when he shouts - " Xavi snapped his fingers. "Ah, the hair-dryer, right?"
"Yeah, that. Pep doesn't shout, though. You'll see. He said he wanted to see you guys after training, and to grab Victor too." Gerard sketched a cheeky salute before turning away. "I'm off to see about Leo, he's in a bad way over the Olympics thing. See you."
When Xavi stole a quick glance sideways, Puyi was grinning. They were off to a good start.
*
After training, the three of them plus a confused Victor piled into the room Pep had turned into a temporary office. It had a very large desk, which was painfully tidy, a large office chair that Pep folded himself into, and a sofa barely big enough for three people. After a quick glance around, Xavi sat on the arm, because he was a big believer in saving everyone else trouble.
Victor raised an eyebrow, but he knew better than to comment. "You wanted to see us, boss?"
Pep leaned forward, propping his elbows on the desk. "I did. Let's talk about the cantera pact."
I knew it.
"Who told?" Xavi said, even as he met Puyi's eyes over Victor's head. "It was Lucho, wasn't it? He could never keep his mouth shut."
Pep returned his amused look, like they were old friends sharing a joke. The smile stayed in his eyes even after it left his lips. "That's not important. I just wanted you guys - you guys in particular - to know that I support you. I will support you all the way, in every way. We all believe in the project. Don't we?"
"It's hard to say it right now, after last season, but yeah. Of course," Puyi said slowly. There were nods all around.
Pep didn't look satisfied. He smiled again, sharp and hungry. "Last season there were mistakes. Without those mistakes, our way works. In fact, that's why we stick to it."
"It's too late to change, anyway. Not like we've got a big man to hit it up to," Victor said, softening the sting in the words with one of his big grins.
Xavi nudged him anyway, noting out of the corner of eye that Andres was doing the same on Victor's other side.
There's a reason for the way we play, the way we teach you all to play.
Whatever else he's learned in the years since that day at La Masia, Xavi never forgot. He was willing to bet none of the others had, either.
Andres' voice was soft but firm. "We believe in the system, Pep."
"I know you do. If you didn't, you wouldn't be here," Pep said lightly, with a warm, approving glance at Andres that instantly brought two spots of high colour onto his cheeks. "But this is a results-driven world. We need to earn the right to play, for our style to exist."
"Can't do that if we don't win," Puyi said quietly. He looked thoughtful, energised. Nowhere near the resigned, unhappy shell he'd been at the end of last season.
"Exactly," Pep said. "But think about it the other way around - what we're trying to do is validate the work that's been done here for twenty, thirty years in the eyes of the world. And we do that by proving that it can be successful, if you put everything into it. I want you all with me."
His voice changed as he went on, until it was ringing and clear and Xavi couldn't look away if he tried.
"Yes, boss."
Pep's hungry smile only got wider. "Things are going to change now. I promise you that."
*
Xavi was the last to leave. When he stood to follow Puyi, Andres and Victor out, Pep caught his arm with the hand that wasn't holding the door.
"Thank you."
"What for?"
For once, he was actually stumped.
"You know what," Pep said casually, as if he was missing the bloody obvious. "For not letting our house burn down. I was being very hard on you, to put that on your shoulders back then, but I only did it because you were capable."
Xavi couldn't think of what to say for the longest moment. Thank you? Apology accepted? Or maybe: how can anyone live the way you do?
In the end, honesty won out. "You haven't changed at all."
Pep looked surprised. Whatever he'd expected in response, it wasn't that. "You think? Is that good or bad?"
"It's... I don't know yet. You - God, Pep, you push so hard all the time, I'm not sure that's always the right thing."
The weight of Pep's arm around his shoulder felt familiar, almost comforting. When Xavi looked up, though, the look in his eyes was entirely new.
"You worry too much. I've learnt my lessons, Xavi. For forty years mismanagement and internal battles have held Barca back. If we have to control everything to prevent that, then that's what we'll do. There's been too much wasted potential. No more."
Laporta had no idea what he'd gotten himself into. Nor, to be fair, did anybody else. Xavi could only look forward to them finding out.
*
They lost Ronnie. Deco. Edmilson. Zambrotta. Thuram. Oleguer. Giovani. Almost Samuel too, until Pep changed his mind. The back room staff was almost totally new. Training methods, dining habits, even press access - everything changed.
It was a revolution, all right.
Puyi glared at him. "Oh, just fucking say it."
"I told you so, years ago, If I'm remembering it right," Xavi obliged, savouring each word. "Enjoy the bloodbath."
"The good kind. The necessary kind."
And that would be why he was captain. Because he said stuff like this and even meant it, and sincerity counted for something in the locker room. Outside, though, he wasn't going to be the one who sold it to the fans. Puyi was a believer, not an ideologue. That was Xavi's job.
Xavi said discipline at the club had suffered in the latter stages of Frank Rijkaard's reign as coach, but said said that new boss Pep Guardiola had managed to get the players back into line.
'They are two very different coaches,' he said. 'Rijkaard believes in self-regulation but that is almost impossible in a team like Barcelona where the players earn a lot of money and win a lot of trophies. In all collective activities there has to be order and discipline and that is what Guardiola has imposed.... As a coach he knows what he wants and he has got some very clear ideas.'
- Xavi: Ronaldinho paid price for lifestyle at Barca, August 2008
They lost their first game.
"What happened?" Pep began, after, his voice perfectly even.
Silence.
The same idiotic goddamn mistakes we made last season, Xavi thought. He knew better than to say it out loud.
"Come on, you all know. Soon as you got on that pitch, you forgot all about what we've been doing in training."
Forgot was a rather generous characterization of what had happened, all things considered. Xavi would have used a stronger word.
Pep still hadn't raised his voice. He didn't have to.
"This only works if you listen to me. I promise you, we will start winning - and do far more than that - but only if you return the trust I've placed in you. I expect to see you all pressing the same way in our next game as you did in training. Is that clear?"
"Yes, boss," a perfect, if subdued, chorus. Everywhere Xavi looked, he saw renewed determination on previously downcast faces.
He could only hope it was going to be enough.
*
Two days later, he knocked on the door to Pep's office after afternoon training.
"Come in!"
The room was painfully, meticulously neat, folders stacked perfectly on the desk that ate up most of the room, not a speck of dust on the large computer monitor.
Pep frowned at the bare walls. "When they finish working on the Ciutat Esportiva, I'm definitely going to have an office with a view."
"They're finally going to move us there?" Xavi said incredulously. He'd heard the rumours, but they were easily disregarded. It took guts for a Barca manager to institute closed training, and Pep was, after all, new and not yet secure in his position. And yet.
If we have to control everything to prevent that, then that's what we'll do.
He should have known better than to doubt.
Pep smiled. "It was a condition of my employment, as you probably already know. What did you want to see me about?"
Xavi sat down in front of the desk, feeling a bit like a pupil facing his school teacher. Which was novel for someone nearing thirty. "Are you okay?"
"Yes. I have no doubts. This is going to work, Xavi. Are you all right?"
Typical Pep, to turn that question around. And to be right about it too, damn him.
"No. I play too many safe passes."
Pep shook his head. "If I thought you were playing too many safe passes, then I'd tell you. So there's no problem. The whole game is in the palm of your hand, Xavi. You've always known how, somebody just had to give you the reins. Understand?"
Xavi nodded stiffly. "I'll try."
Pep reached across the desk and cupped his cheek with one long-fingered hand. His eyes were bright even in the dim light, and it was an act of will for Xavi to keep looking back.
"None of that. Frank was smart enough to let you run games with Deco. Well, now Deco's gone. You're not on your own - there's Andres alongside and Leo in front of you - but you're the one making us play."
He said it as if it was already true.
Xavi smiled despite himself. "You know, sometimes you really do scare me."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Pep said, chuckling. He patted Xavi's cheek before letting go.
"Xavi is a player who has the Barcelona DNA: someone who has the taste for good football, someone who is humble and someone who has loyalty to this club. From the first moment I saw him play, I knew he would become the brain behind Barcelona for many years to come. He plays very, very well, much better than I ever played even when I was at my best."
- Pep Guardiola, 2008
Xavi passed; Barca played. They won.
The Copa, the league, and then Rome, a night so perfect he had to keep pinching himself just to prove it was real.
A night when he looked across the pitch at the Olympic Stadium after the final whistle to see Pep grinning like a boy and knew that the same look of stunned happiness was mirrored on his own face.
Because they'd earned the right to play, and they'd done it right, almost to perfection, before the eyes of the whole world, and they'd won.
*
The club made them come in to take pictures with the trophies before jetting off on holiday, which was just about the least onerous duty Xavi could think of. It gave him an excuse to show up and pester Pep, anyway.
"Can I talk to you?"
"Always. Let's go to my office."
Just as he'd said, Pep had a room with a view at the Ciutat Esportiva. It was a much nicer space than the badly lit box in the bowls of Camp Nou that had served as his previous office. Floor to ceiling windows. He could easily watch training from here, if he didn't feel like going outside.
"Very nice."
"I think so. The windows are a clever touch. This way anyone can see who I'm talking to at any point, see?" Pep's mouth curved into a smirk. "It makes people less nervous."
There was a time - a long, long time ago - when Xavi wouldn't have known why that was funny. A few years ago, he might not have given any indication that he knew.
"Do you think I was too quiet, before?"
Pep considered it for a good minute. "I think - I think your prudence has served you well. If I'd been wise enough to be less mouthy back then, I'd have had much less trouble."
Self-deprecating, a little amused, inviting Xavi to laugh with him.
He couldn't, not right then. "You're principled. That shouldn't be a bad thing."
"It's possible to be principled without shouting about it," Pep said gently. "Your own way, Xavi. Not mine, not anyone else's."
That much was true. Xavi nodded. "I stopped trying to live up to you years ago. It was too exhausting."
Pep's smile gained a bittersweet twist. "I'm just a person, you know."
"No, you're not. Not to me, not to any Cule."
El mite - the nickname itself said it all. Even those who mocked him with it had to admit that it was a double-edged sword. By using it they themselves built the myth.
"That's not helpful," Pep said quietly.
"Sometimes." The symbol would always be a symbol, but he was a man, too, and Xavi owed him that. "Pep, I do actually know that you're a human being. I do now, anyway. I'm sorry about before."
"Apology unnecessary and therefore not accepted." He held up a hand when Xavi opened his mouth to argue the point. "You know, sometimes I think about moving to a house by the sea with shelves full of books, somewhere really, really isolated, and just staying there for a few years. Maybe longer."
Xavi pictured it: the house, the beach, the silence. It would be lovely. Then he tried to picture Pep actually being there. "That'd never work. You need a life of blood and thunder like a fish needs water."
Pep laughed, surprised. "Mm. Maybe. You're the same."
"No way. I'm not getting back into this again once I'm done, no matter how much they pay me."
"What, you're going to sit at home?" Pep said teasingly. "You'd be bored to death."
"I'd be relieved to be out of it, you mean."
Unlike Pep, he could picture himself just helping out around the house, playing fetch with his dog and watching endless games of football. How long it would last, that he wasn't sure about.
"For the first two weeks, maybe. You couldn't be happy watching from the sidelines. Not Barca."
"Maybe. I've still got time. I'll figure something out."
Xavi was 30 years old when he pulled on the blaugrana shirt for the 550th time. He'd spent two thirds of his life in the shadow of the Camp Nou, and he couldn't imagine spending the rest of it anywhere else. It was his.
"For me, Barca is unconditional. Let's just say that I'm playing at Arsenal, at Manchester, at Bayern Munich. I'd constantly be asking myself, "What's happening at Barca?" I'd be paying attention to what's going on, who's playing, what they are doing, how they are doing - I love this club, I love it. And so do [my family]. That's how we've grown up. And that's the big difference. I mean, look, I've always said, I won't leave Barca until they throw me out on the street. I won't leave. I won't."
- Xavi, Xavi 550, 2011
Notes:
1. A lot of the background in this fic comes from the documentary Xavi 550, produced by Televisió de Catalunya.
2. Xavi's father was a professional footballer. His siblings Alex, Oscar and Ariadna all play too.
3. Names mentioned:
- Luis Garcia Sanz: product of La Masia, once of Liverpool, he of the famous 'ghost goal' against Chelsea.
- Quique Costas: has been involved with FC Barcelona in some capacity since 1970, both as a player and a manager at La Masia, including three separate stints in charge of Barca B.
- Louis van Gaal: manager of Barcelona from 1998 to 2000 and from 2002 to 2003. Famously abrasive, his time as Barca boss was full of clashes with top players and the local press.
- Rivaldo: the last great Barca no.10 before Messi and Ronaldinho. Clashed repeatedly with van Gaal.
- Luis Figo: fan favourite and vice captain who joined Real Madrid in 2000 in one of the most shocking transfers ever. His departure sparked off a decline at Barca that was only arrested by a total revolution in 2003.
- Luis 'Lucho' Enrique: fan favourite who joined Barca from Real Madrid in 1996.
- Sergi Barjuan: one of La Masia's first success stories. Locker room heavy-weight alongside Luis Enrique, Guardiola and Abelardo.
- Llorenc Serra Ferrer: Barca manager after van Gaal's first firing. Commonly seen as ineffective and unable to control the strong personalities in his locker room.
- Carles 'Puyi' Puyol: voted club captain unanimously by the first team squad in 2004. Still there, still amazing.
- Joan Laporta: elected Barca president in 2003 on the back of what began as a protest candidacy against the reign of Joan Gaspart, ushering in an era of change.
- Other names: Gerard Lopez, Gabri Garcia, Thiago Motta, Oleguer Presas, Sergio Garcia, Giovani dos Santos (all La Masia graduates); Ronaldinho 'Ronnie' Gaucho, Gianluca Zambrotta, Lilian Thuram, Samuel Eto'o, Ludovic Giuly, (key foreign players from Rijkaard's Barca); Patrick Kluviert.
4. Barca youth structure, from the top: Barcelona B, (Barcelona C, later disbanded), Juvenil A and B (16-18 year olds), Cadet A and Cadet B (14-15 year olds), and so on.
5. Barca in the post-Cruyff era (after 1996) was defined by conflict between Cruyffistas and anti-Cruyffistas throughout the entire structure of the club, from the directors on down. The most prominent members of the first team were inevitably dragged into this conflict. Pep Guardiola's status as an outspoken advocate of Catalanism and Barca's place in promoting Catalanism only made him a bigger target.
6. Xavi made his debut in a Spanish Super Cup game against Mallorca in August 1998 in which he also scored his first goal.
7. It's been made very clear by both parties that Pep and Xavi, although they are professionally speaking the perfect collaborators, do not have a personal relationship. They're very different people, for one; and I suspect the circumstances surrounding their early acquaintance played a part too. From the first they were being pitted against each other by people who wanted to bring Guardiola down, which in turn made the other side attack Xavi.
8. Pep had several reoccurring injuries starting from 1998 that plagued him for almost all of his remaining time at Barca. During his long absences, wild rumours circulated about why he wasn't getting better. Unfortunately, people really did allege that he'd contracted HIV (as an additive to the rumours and speculation surrounding his sexuality). I'm not making that up.
9. Xavi really did have a credible offer from Milan when he was very young.
10. maqui ('the machine' in Catalan) is Guardiola's name (or title, if you prefer) for Xavi.
11. Pep Guardiola left Barca in 2001, exhausted (and I think somewhat disillusioned) from the years of infighting and self-sabotage that had come before. The collapse that had began with the departure of Figo continued, and Barca didn't win a single trophy between 2001 and 2005.
12. Xavi scored the winning goal in the 2004 Clasico at the Bernabeu, the game which many saw as the passing of the torch from the Galacticos to Rijkaard's team. They finally won the league again the following season, after 5 years in the wilderness.
13. Xavi suffered an ACL injury during 05-06, as a result of which he missed the entire second half of the season, including the Champions League final.
14. Barca lost the 06-07 title to Real on head-to-head results (having drawn the Clasico at the Camp Nou 3-3 and lost the one at the Bernabeu 2-0).
15. The season after that they contrived to finish third. Barca's problems that season stemmed from a mixture of player indiscipline and a manager who was going through a personal crisis and couldn't focus on football. Real clinched the title early enough that Barca had to give them a guard of honour when they visited the Bernabeu, in the infamous 4-1 during which Xavi was sent off in stoppage time. Frank Rijkaard was sacked after this game.
16. Guardiola became manager of Barca B in 2007, when they had just been relegated to the Spanish equivalent of the Fourth Division. His team topped the regional table and were promoted without a hitch that season, featuring players such as Pedro and Sergi Busquets.
17. El mite ('the myth' in Catalan) is an old nickname of Guardiola's from his playing days. It's meant half in jest - the man who's surely too good to be true - but I've seen it used seriously, as in the 2009 El Pais headline Pep, Symbol; Pep, Myth.
18. Pep ushered in a wide range of changes when he became first team manager in 2008. Some of these changes were ones he'd made a condition of his employment. The use of the Ciutat Esportiva (a new state of the art training complex with controlled media access) was widely rumoured to be one of them. The rest, as they say, is history.
19. By making his 550th appearance for Barca, Xavi broke the record set by club legend Migueli. He is now the record holder for number of appearances made in a Barca shirt, a record he continues to extend with each game.
20. Title from Run by Snow Patrol.
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