Xavi to succeed Pep, says Laporta

Joan Laporta believes that Pep Guardiola will become the next president of FC Barcelona and Xavi Hernandez will be installed as the club's new coach.

The former Blaugrana president cast his eye over the next big changes at Camp Nou when current supremo Sandro Rosell either loses his seat in an election or steps down.

Guardiola's future has been the subject of much speculation as he has yet to pen a new deal to stay on as club coach next term.

"Pep Guardiola will be the next president of Barcelona," Laporta told La Repubblica.

"Xavi will be the next coach, he is a phenomenon. He is a also a great person."

Laporta oversaw a turnaround in Barcelona's fortunes when he took over as president in 2003 and lent on club legend Johan Cruyff for advice on how to change things.

Barca won the league title twice and lifted the Champions League for only the second time in the club's history in 2006 and Laporta thinks he knows the formula that brought about success.

"There are four elements to it. Catalunya is one of them. Johan Cruyff is also an important key to the club's success," he continued.

"The third is La Masia and the fourth is UNICEF. It is upsetting that UNICEF is no longer the main sponsor.

"We paid to have UNICEF on the team shirt and now it is has been removed it is moving. It is a big mistake."

Joan Laporta.

Best president in our history.

It would be nice for Pep to stay for some years, then take in Xavi as his 2nd or 3rd coach (if Tito is still there) and then go leaving Xavi as the 1st team coach.

Xavi has, on paper, everything you need to be a great coach and specially a great Barça coach: he is intelligent, has communication skills, he is crazy for football and has a lot of knoweledge, is a Barça legend and has huge charisma, loves the club and Catalonia and is a fundamentalist about our way of playing football.

yes i can really see xavi making it big coaching at barca. he can start with youth division just like pep did.

ahh Laporta... i will always cherish the memories of his cheeky smile while sitting next to all other rival club presidents, almost ashamed of how Barca dominated the other team !

Xavi will certainly be our perfect future coach "on paper" lets see if he wishes to take this road, and if he does well in its early stages etc.. Fingers crossed !

Pep would not be the president anytime soon, maybe a few years down the coaching life..?!

Xavi vs Mou will render the word troll meaningless. A new word will need to be invented.

I think Xavi would make a great coach though, he's a cerebral player, the most cerebral player I've seen play....although i do question his ability to inspire and man-manage but those are question marks on basically every new coach.

Yes, it's a question mark, but on paper, he should be able to inspire and man manage: he is smart, good comunicator, has charisma and is a football and Barça legend. All that are qualities that should help to inspire and man manage.

Xavi vs. Mou will never happen, at least with Mou at Madrid. Mou will leave much sooner.

I wish him success. Still a bit of uncertainty but I think Xavi would make a great coach/manager one day.

Wonderful comments from Laporta. I have no doubt Xavi will be a top class coach one day if he takes that route. At the moment he says he won't be going for it but I do think he will change his mind as the years go by and we certainly hope he does.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but whenever Xavi has been asked whether he would one day like to be coach he's answered something a long the lines of "I don't think coaching is for me". But hopefully it'll happen.

Laporta

He was a great president though wasted so much money. Guardiola will later on become a president for Barca but after he has finished coaching. Xavi will some day also become a coach, its whether he will come in straight away or relax a few years. His four aspects are correct and its right about the sponsership as well as I really do love UNICEF and according to some reports earlier in the year the players have argued that their jereseys that they have recieved from Qatar Foundation are really heavy compared to the previous years. Laporta

How about stop saying who is succeeding who and increase the squad depth.

^True Pax. If one look at Guardiola's age he is still young

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but whenever Xavi has been asked whether he would one day like to be coach he's answered something a long the lines of "I don't think coaching is for me". But hopefully it'll happen.

Laporta

Well in Football manager 2011 he said he just want to concentrate on his game

Laporta just enjoying it after beating Napoli pic.twitter.com/p4h8cDkqyo

— Siempre Positivo (@SiemprePod) February 25, 2022

Man, so many posters have left GL.

Do the kids go on reddit for these things nowadays?