Xavi 2010

Spain legend…now a world champion in addition to a European champion

previous year too. And the year before that. It ’s as if we are awarding Xavi for an era. His era.

But it ’s not just an apology for taking so long. There is a kind of morally superior simplicity to it too, a kind of footballing puritanism, a moral duty to recognise those that make it happen – not for themselves, but for others. It is also sorry for getting blinded by all that stardust, by the goals and the tricks, by the men who dominate the agenda and take the glory. Xavi rarely takes the glory; instead, he gives it.

It is not that he is a better player than the rest, which he is, but that he makes the rest better players too. That is what we have come to recognise. It is what people like about him.

“I need team-mates, people to combine with,” Xavi says. “Without team-mates football has no meaning. I am no one without them.”

more passes than their entire midfield put together. And he is doing the same again this season. In the last 12 months, a player has completed 100 or more passes just 24 times in the whole of Europe. On 12 of those occasions that player was Xavi. As Dani Alves insists, Xavi does not just pass the ball, he forces the play by making the angles for his team-mates, by obliging them to move with his passes. “Xavi,” the Brazilian says, “plays in the future.” He controls the game, dominating the opposition, leading his side. He is the ideologue, the metronome, the conductor. And not just for any old sides either. He does it for arguably the finest teams Spanish football has ever seen, maybe even the finest the world has ever seen. It is hard to disagree with the argument that Xavi is the greatest central midfielder Spain has produced. It is hard to disagree with the argument that

Xavi is the greatest central midfielder Spain has produced

The response is obvious in that they might well be no one without you. They certainly wouldn’t be the same. Perhaps not even Leo Messi.

Xavi refers to himself as “basically a passer”, but that simple phrase contains so much more. Spanish TV commentator Andres Montes called him “Humphrey Bogart” because, like Sam in Casablanca, Xavi was asked to play it again. And again. And again. In the clasico last season he completed almost 100 passes at the Santiago Bernabeu; this season he did reach three figures at Camp Nou – 114 to be precise. And, unusually for him, he also scored the opening goal.

By the end of last season, Xavi had completed over 400 more passes than any other player in Spain and over 400 more than any player from any other club in the Champions League. In the game against Arsenal he completed It is just a pity it has taken until now for everyone to argue it. Still, at least we realised before it was too late.

In 2008, Spain were European champions. In 2009, Barcelona won the treble. In 2010, Spain won the World Cup. They all did so playing wonderful football, unique football. There is a clarity of identity about those teams that has possibly never been seen before. That identity is Xavi’s identity. In each of those successes, Xavi touched the ball more than anyone else and yet, each time he got it, he had just one thought in his mind: give it to someone else.

Xavi was the man dictating the pace, the flow, the speed, the game; game after game after game. As the Spanish say: “The current Spain team and the current Barcelona side dance to Xavi’s tune.” And that tune is the perfect symphony. Sid Lowe

Top 10 Players of 2010

Player Club

Country % of vote 1) Xavi Barcelona Spain 25.8 2) Lionel Messi Barcelona Argentina 24.1 3) Wesley Sneijder Internazionale Netherlands 17.3 4) Diego Forlan Atletico Madrid Uruguay 15.8 5) Andres Iniesta Barcelona Spain 10.8 6) Diego Milito Internazionale Argentina 1.2 7) David Villa Valencia/Barcelona Spain 1.1 8) Iker Casillas Real Madrid Spain 0.9 9) Samuel Eto’o Internazionale Cameroon 0.5 10) Arjen Robben Bayern Munich Netherlands 0.4

Tight…this year’s contest was one of the closes in the award’s history

Other World Soccer Award winners 2010

Three times award winner… Mourinho won the treble with Internazionale

MANAGER OF THE YEAR: Jose Mourinho, Internazionale

Top two… Mesut Ozil and Muller polled 73 per cent between them in the Young Player category

YOUNG PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Thomas Muller, Bayern Munich & Germany TEAM OF THE YEAR: Spain