Xavi will stay at Barcelona and lead the Catalan side next season despite having confirmed his decision to leave a few months ago.
The former Spain international announced in January that he would resign as Barcelona’s manager following their struggles.
The 5-3 home loss to Villareal prompted Xavi to make the announcement. However, Barcelona won 13 straight games in all competitions.
That streak ended when Barca lost 4-1 to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League quarterfinal stage.
Blaugrana also lost their El Clasico match against Real Madrid, 3-2, on Sunday.
Xavi is to stay in Barcelona.
There was a crucial meeting between the now-former La Liga champions president Joan Laporta and director Deco, in which the manager was convinced to stay.
Barcelona’s president insisted for months on keeping Xavi from changing his mind, and the agreement is now sealed.
The club decided to consider other options only in case Xavi was confirming his plan to leave, now staying.
What happened with Xavi’s turning point
According to the Athletic, Xavi had already thought of changing his mind for a couple of weeks.
On January 27, Xavi announced his intention to resign at the end of this term as he described the Barca job as “cruel”, cited concerns over his mental health and said, “At some point, you realise there’s no point in staying.”
But for weeks, with the team unbeaten since he spoke those words—an 11-match run that included reaching the Champions League quarter-finals—support for keeping Xavi has been growing.
Barcelona club president Joan Laporta said before the international break that he would try to persuade the 44-year-old to stay, and on Saturday, vice-president Rafa Yuste continued in that vein. “Xavi knows what we want,” he said. “It’s his decision — what I’m going to do as far as I can is try to convince him to continue.”
Despite defeats at the latest La Liga El Clasico at Real Madrid and being eliminated by PSG in the UCL Quarter-final, Xavi’s contributions to the club were enormous.
Barça vice president Rafa Yuste: “Xavi trusts our project. We can do great things together”. “We need to win titles, we all know that. We trust Xavi for that, he’s a proper Barça guy. He will be part of new Barcelona in the new Camp Nou”.
