“Xavi is eternal. Even when he is not at his very best level physically, he plays a kind of football that gives oxygen to a team. He is football”
Tag: xavi
Having already clinched FIFA Player of the Year award ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo and Mohamed Salah, Luka Modrić also took home the 2018 Ballon d’Or following his exploits with both club and…
This feature is part of Duology Sometimes we aren’t gifted a logical ending to a story. Sometimes a tale is wrapped up in the most head-scratching of manners. Sometimes the final act…
Illustration by Federico Manasse Xavi Hernández departed the pitch for the final time as a Barcelona player, filled with emotion. It was bittersweet for the then-35-year-old, who departed for Qatar in 2015…
THE EXPERT, THE ARCHITECT, THE SCIENTIST; the heartbeat, the metronome, the brain. Endless adjectives, analogies and appellations have been summoned by fellow professionals in sincere yet scant attempts to describe exactly what…
The art of diplomacy, it is said, is to recognise the beliefs, opinions and feelings of other people and to balance them accordingly with those of their opponents – breeding it itself an…
NOTHING LASTS FOREVER. If a footballer’s legacy to the game is to be summed up in their farewell match or testimonial, then they and the fans that try to imprint some lasting…
FOR THE GENERATION OF FOOTBALL FANATICS FROM WHENCE I CAME, the summer of 2015 will be a poignant one. Time, it appears, has flown. Now our idols, those we were besotted by –…
As featured on Guardian Sport AS TV BECOMES increasingly saturated by football coverage, there is a chance that fans might take for the granted the mortality of footballers’ professional careers and the lifespans…