Xavi is statistically Barcelona's WORST manager in 20 years

Cameron Smith

• Updated: 17 Oct 2022 10:56 BST
• 4 min read

Xavi arrived back at Barcelona with the weight of expectation of a whole city on his shoulders, and that pressure is beginning to mount on him.

The 3-1 loss to Real Madrid in El Clasico has put a dampener on an encouraging start to La Liga season, while four points from their opening four Champions League games has meant a second consecutive group stage exit looks a very real possibility.

Despite praise for the former midfielder's coaching, he hasn't been able to extract production from summer signing Raphinha, who has just one goal and one assist in 12 games, while performances haven't been up to standard.

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The loss to Carlo Ancelotti's side signalled Xavi's 50th game in charge of Barcelona, and confirmed that he's statistically the worst coach to have managed 50 games in Barca's history.

Xavi has won just 28 games during his 50 games in charge, which is the joint-worst with Frank Rijkaard. However, the Dutch manager lost one fewer game during that time.

As a result, Xavi is the worst manager by games won of any Barcelona manager to reach 50 games in charge.

The start of Xavi's reign

When he arrived, the Blaugrana had just lost Lionel Messi, were in financial debt and had started the 2021/22 La Liga season in poor fashion.

The club were languishing down in ninth place when Ronald Koeman was replaced by the Barca legend, with a title challenge already gone and a place in next season's Champions league looking a struggle.

However, after several months of the Xavi regime, Barcelona were back up to second in La Liga and it had looked like Xavi had steadied the ship.

Players such as Pedri and Gavi kept the core of young talent alive, while the free transfer signing of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and the January arrival of Ferran Torres both paid off.

But, Barcelona crashed out of the Europa League at the quarter-final stage, despite being the overwhelming favourites for the competition.

This season has seen them fare no better in Europe, while their league form remains fairly impressive, something that doesn't stand Xavi in good stead given Barcelona's desire to return to the top of European football.

How many Points Per Game has Xavi won at Barcelona?

Despite an encouraging start to life as Barcelona manager on the whole, things have since dropped off for Xavi.

Although they've started the 2022/23 La Liga season in fine form, with Robert Lewandowski hitting the ground running, Xavi's points per game (PPG) tally as Barcelona manager stands at 1.90. By comparison, Ronald Koeman had an average of 1.96 PPG during his time in charge but was fired at the start of last season.

In fact, Xavi currently has the worst PPG of any Barcelona manager since Radi Antic's spell in charge (1.83 PPG), which only lasted 147 days.