Xavi’s Barça hope clásico moment at the Bernabéu heralds new beginning

The nets where Barcelona had scored four times, twice at the north end, twice at the south, had been unhooked and hung flat. The benches had been vacated, bottles and bits of tape lying everywhere. And around the pitch, circled by those plastic chairs, people packed away another clásico. The Santiago Bernabéu was quiet except for the lawnmower crossing the grass until it was broken by a cheer, the sound of embraces. The players were already on the bus but Joan Laporta, Jordi Cruyff and Mateu Alemany were by the tunnel taking it all in when Xavi Hernández appeared.

An hour after the final whistle, heading towards midnight and long after everyone else had gone home, there was time for one last look and more bear hugs. It really had happened: Barcelona, this Barcelona, had beaten Real Madrid 4-0, which is why there was time for pictures too, Xavi and his staff lined up for a team photo: a memento of the kind of moment most people thought wasn’t coming back. Not this soon, at least. But then Laporta isn’t most people and nor, it is becoming very quickly clear, is Xavi.

During Barcelona’s presidential race just over a year ago, Laporta had erected a huge banner that covered the façade of a 15-storey building within view of the Bernabéu, his face smiling out, mischief in his eye.

“Looking forward to seeing you all again,” the slogan ran, and that would turn out to be one electoral promise he would keep. On his first visit to the Paseo de la Castellana since becoming president for a second time, Xavi’s first as coach four months after taking over, and the first clásico played there at all for 749 days, had gone even better.

“Historic,” Xavi called it. This was a night, the Barcelona manager said, that “reminded us of many games