Clasico offers Barca coach Xavi a welcome chance to put one hand on La Liga trophy

On his way out of Camp Nou in what was his last clasico as Barcelona coach, Ronald Koeman had to press the brakes on his car sharply and frequently. Supporters had crowded around the vehicle, some to snap photos recording how close they got to the so-called Hero of Wembley, the man who, as a player, scored the goal that won Barca’s first European Cup almost 30 years earlier.

Others wanted to bang on the roof of the car, shout or gesture that, to them, the Hero of Wembley was no longer any sort of hero, and that he should quit. It was the autumn of 2021 and Barcelona had just lost at home to Real Madrid in front of 85,000. Koeman was sacked three evenings later.

Being bettered by Madrid is what puts a Barcelona coach in the most extreme and urgent jeopardy. So in many respects, Xavi, who succeeded Koeman, ought to be concerned.

At the end of his first season in charge, his first attempt at management in Europe, he was obliged to watch Barca’s great rival scoop up a double of La Liga and European Cup, at the end of a campaign in which Koeman and Xavi had overseen their club’s exit at the group stage of the Champions League. Like Koeman, Xavi counts great European success among his many past distinctions as a Barca player and knows fans expect it.

Xavi’s European record as a coach, though, is looking very threadbare already. If he can legitimately argue that the 2021/22 Champions League failings were his inheritance rather than his doing, another group-phase elimination this season, when Bayern Munich and Internazionale finished above a Barca freshly strengthened by the purchase of Robert Lewandowski and several other newcomers with champion pedigree, left lasting damage.

When Manchester United immediately knocked Barca out