Biography of Xavi Hernandez: – Spanish footballer belonging to the discipline of Football Club Barcelona from the lower categories to its consolidation in the first team.
The soccer of touch of ball with players of great technique that imposed the denominated Dream Team of Johan Cruyff had his hunch in this technique midfielder refined that protects the ball like no one and “reads” with admirable simplicity the pace that must acquire the match in each phase of the game.
Biography of Xavi Hernandez
- Born:- 25 January 1980 (age 37), Terrassa, Spain
- spouse:- Núria Cunillera (m. 2013)
- Current Team:- Al Sadd SC (#6 / Midfielder)
- Children:- Asia Hernández Cunillera
- Awards:- UEFA Team of the Year
At the end of the Euro 2008, which won the Spanish team for the second time in history, was chosen Best Player of the tournament, a distinction that rarely falls to a midfielder and who acknowledged his fundamental contribution.
See Also: Biography of Hugo Sanchez
Xavi was also instrumental in achieving Barça’s “triplet” (which won the League, the Copa Del Rey and the Champions League in 2009) and the Spanish team’s triumph at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. That Spain was proclaimed for the first time world champion.
His father, who was a player of Sabadell, instilled his passion for football. The scouts of the Fútbol Club Barcelona followed him in several children’s parties of the city egarense at the request of the father.
Finally, at eleven years, he made a test and in July of 1991 he entered the Masia, the residence of the future stars of Barça who do not come from the City of Barcelona. Xavi immediately noticed his teacher Josep Guardiola, his current coach and key figure of the Dream Teammate the time.
Looking at himself in that mirror, his progression was so meteoric that Guardiola himself, one day watching him from the band in a youth game, predicted his teammates: “This one is going to retire us all.” More or less that way.
Xavi became the natural successor of Guardiola; despite the fact that other excellent organizers were forced to leave the ranks of the club, such as Cesc Fabregas or Vlikel Arteta, who play in the English and Scottish Premier League, respectively.
His predisposition to learn things, the maturity that radiated at such a young age and his quality of football led to the 1997-1998 season from youth to Barca B, where he immediately became the “brain” of the team.
A team in which Xavi not only commanded and organized, but scored easily thanks to his unexpected arrivals to the area and his mastery in the launching of fouls with a barrier.
Already then, despite his short stature (1.70 m) and his small build (weighs 63 kilos when he is in top form), he would be a teacher in the conduct of the ball and in the protection of it.
In the following season he alternated his performances with B and the first team, with which he debuted on August 18, 1998 with Dutch coach Louis Van Gaal in a Supercup match of Spain against Real Mallorca.
He started and scored a goal. Van Gaal made him debut in the league on October 3 of that same year at the Mestalla against Valencia, who fell defeated by 1-3. His intermittent performances with the first team gave wings to a bogus Barça that occupied the tenth position of the table.
Xavi scored a decisive goal that gave the victory to his team in the field of Valladolid, and from that victory, counting more assiduously with its presence, the azulgranas traced of so spectacular form that they would gain Liga 1998-1999. It was his second professional title.
In the season 1999-2000, due to an injury of Guardiola, Xavi consolidated in the first equipment. Convinced of his possibilities, his game matured exponentially. Meanwhile, his stellar performance in Nigeria meant that on November 15, 2000 he made his debut against the Netherlands.
A few years later he would be regularly summoned to defend the colors of Spain. From the 2000-2001 seasons, with Guardiola’s departure to Italian Calcio, Xavi became the undisputed starter with both Van Gaal and subsequent coaches: Carles Reixach, Radomir Antic and Frank Rijkaard. In the Barca, however, he would not reach his third title, the League, until May 14, 2005, after a painful march of the team and the club through a desert of nonsense.
In summer of the same year he was proclaimed champion of the Supercopa of Spain, title that would renew the following year, in which in the return match marked a decisive goal before Real Club Spanish, to which the azulgranas surpassed by 3-0.
Usually the injuries respected him, reason why always he was in form when his participation was required. It is only worth mentioning a rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament of the right knee during a training session at the Camp Nou in December 2005.
That mishap had a negative effect on his projection by forcing him to be absent for five months until the end of April 2006, when reappeared before the Cadiz CF That year the azulgranas got again the title of Liga and the Supercopa of Spain.
But the greatest moment of glory of that year 2006 for a team that worked like a machine (thanks to the work of Xavi and Andrés Iniesta in the core and the geniuses of Ronaldinho and Eto’oin the lead) came with the victory in the Champions League, the unfinished business of Barça, which only had in their cases the Dream Team achieved in 1992. Xavi, however, could not participate in the final against Arsenal FC due to his low form by the injury.
In 2007, in the Champions League match against Olympique Lyon, played on September 19, Xavi equaled Migueli as FC Barcelona player who played most matches in European competitions (85).
And overcame the mythical central Ceutí on October 2 of that same year in a game against VfB Stuttgart. The difference, of course, would continue to rise.
As for his matches with Barça, on 24 November 2007 and before the Spanish club de Recreativo Huelva equaled the figure of 400 official matches that Guardiola had.
But without the title of European Champion of Nations of 2008, in which Xavi exploited to the maximum qualities that did not prodigaba (pass in depth to the striker with greater advantage and kicks from outside the area), would not have occupied the first pages of the press.
In that Eurocopa, disputed in Austria and Switzerland, the azulgrana midfielder, indoctrinated by Luis Aragones, advanced its position with resounding success. He scored his first goal on June 26 against Russia.
And in the final against Germany, Xavi gave the goal pass to Fernando Torres, who scored the only goal of the match. His performance in the Eurocopa won him the prize for Best Player of the competition, a mention that usually falls on a striker.
The media, however, agreed that it was a wise choice. In addition to this greater distinction, Xavi had been awarded the best soccer player of the seasons 1998-1999 and 2004-2005 by the sports magazine Don Pelota, and already in 1999 had received the prize El País like revelation soccer player.
If with the Spanish team he had one of the best moments to win the European Championship, the 2008-2009 season still reserved a higher destination: to be an essential part, together with Iniesta, of the organization of the game of FC Barcelona in which he was without doubt the best season in the history of the club.
Barça, in fact, achieved something as unusual in world football as the “triplet”, the victory in the three tournaments in which it participated: the Spanish League, the Copa Del Rey and the Champions League.
The game exhibited by the team amazed everyone, of course it was the new coach, his admired Josep Guardiola, the main architect of that revolution, but such successes are not conceivable without organizers such as Iniesta and Xavi himself.
The 2009-2010 seasons added its fifth league title to its record, after a very intense competition in which Fútbol Club Barcelona and Real Madrid reached vertiginous records in both goals and points, winning 31 of the 38 matches played.
Barça, who also scored the Spanish Super Cup, could not however revalidate their victory in the Champions League after falling into the semi-finals.
After the season, the 2010 World Cup in South Africa would give Xavi the last title left to win. Despite the disappointing defeat against Switzerland, the Spanish team trained by Vicente Del Bosque remained faithful to his style and Xavi and his other midfielder brains (Iniesta, Xabi Alonso, and Cesc Fabregas) chained a victory behind another to defeat Germany in the semifinals and Holland in the final. For the first time, after decades “without passing quarters”, Spain was proclaimed world champion.
Rather cold player on the field, his teammates praise his integrity and his ability to trace a game that seems lost. It is not a media star, although any elite team would be delighted to have your services.
But he feels so identified with his lifelong club and his hobby that he has not heard the siren songs of other leagues and other clubs; plans to retire at Barcelona, whose coach pampers him and doses for fear of injury, lining up in key matches.
From the 2010-2011 seasons will undoubtedly remember the extraordinary goal with which Xavi opened the scoring against Mourinho’s Madrid.
