Xavi

Sorry if you aren't a soccer fan but I had to do a post on a true legend, Xavi Hernández Creus.

When he was 11 years old Xavi started at La Masia, the Barcelona youth academy. The selected young men live at La Masia and go to school there while also playing and learning all there is to know about soccer!  He made his first-team debut against Mallorca in August of 1998.  Since then he has played 700 matches, scored 82 goals and made more than 180 assists for over 50 players.  Xavi is the first player in Barcelona's history to play 150 international matches.  Highly regarded for his humble personality and his team spirit, Xavi is viewed as being the embodiment of the tiki-taka passing style of play and is considered to be one of the the greatest central midfielders of all time.  He is also considered by some to be Spain's greatest ever player.

Xavi relies on his ability to find and exploit space.  As he said, "That's what I do: look for spaces.  All day, I'm always looking."   Finding space, he would appear for a team-mate to receive and then move the ball on.  Former coach Pep Guardiola explained it this way.  "I get the ball, I give the ball, I get the ball, I give the ball."  I think that is about as good of an explanation of tiki-taka as I've heard!

Xavi's abnormally good vision, pinpoint accurate passing and world class ball control allow him to dictate the flow of play while rarely relinquishing possession.  His ability to completely control some matches has earned him the nickname, "The Puppet Master".  Before the Champion's league final in 2008 against Manchester United, legendary coach Sir Alex Ferguson said, "I don't think Xavi and Iniesta have ever given the ball away in their lives.  They get you on that carousel and they can leave you dizzy!" Barcelona won that day!

Time catches up with everyone, even the best of the best, so this year at age 35 Xavi announced that he was going to leave Barcelona to play for a team in Qatar. Not only will he play for them, he will be an ambassador for the 2022 World Cup which will be in Qatar and start working on his coaching credentials.  We all hope to see him back at the Camp Nou as the coach!

Here he is going onto the pitch for the last time as a Barcelona Player.

Titles he's won with FC Barcelona

Champion's League 4 
La Ligas 8
Copa del Reyes 3
Club World Cups 2

In addition he has won 2 Euro Cups and 1 FIFA World Cup with the Spanish National Team.

Quite a player and quite a gentleman!  And what a way to end his sterling career at FCB with another Treble!