This is how the signing of Xavi Hernández for the Netherlands was conceived
After three weeks of meetings, the agreement was sealed this Wednesday in Marbella
BarcelonaThe signing of Xavi Hernández as the new manager of the Netherlands was finalized this Wednesday afternoon. After three weeks of meetings between Barcelona and Amsterdam, during which the sporting director of the Dutch football federation, Nigel de Jong, contacted the former Barça coach to offer him the position, the definitive agreement was sealed in Marbella. After a few days on the Costa Brava, Xavi Hernández is with family and friends in this municipality on the Malaga coast. De Jong traveled there to sign the contract that has made the Egara-born player the new manager of the Netherlands until the 2030 World Cup.
Following Ronald Koeman's resignation due to the premature elimination of the Dutch national team at the hands of Morocco (1-1, 2-3 on penalties) in the round of 16 of the World Cup, the orange federation did not want to delay any further in presenting a new face on the bench. Xavi will be officially presented on August 25th in Amsterdam and will debut in an official match against Jürgen Klopp's Germany on September 24th, in the first matchday of the Nations League. This competition will be the testing ground for the Egara-born player's debut in international football, with the 2028 European Championship as the first major test for a Netherlands team that seeks to once again play recognizable football with the school of Johan Cruyff and Rinus Michels, as two of its great exponents, and to be competitive again in major tournaments.
In fact, Xavi's narrative – and his footballing philosophy (positional play, attacking teams that dominate possession, offensive football...) – aligns with the fact that both the Dutch federation and the Catalan coach have decided to join forces. "Without Johan Cruyff at Barça, a footballer like Xavi would surely not have had the career he did. Louis van Gaal gave him his debut and with Frank Rijkaard he blossomed," they explain to ARA from the Egara-born player's circle.
In fact, the vagaries of history willed that Xavi should debut precisely in a friendly match against the Netherlands as a player for the Spanish national team in 2000 and that his last professional match in international football should also be against the Dutch: it was a defeat (1-5) in the second match of the group stage of the 2014 World Cup. Before that, Xavi had also been the executioner of the orange team in the final of the 2010 World Cup. Now, the man from Terrassa becomes the first non-Dutch coach to lead the Netherlands team in 48 years. The last one had been the Austrian Ernst Happel in 1978.
Xavi Hernández prioritized coaching a national team
Xavi had not managed any team for almost two years, although he has received interest from various clubs along the way. As the ARA can reveal, among the clubs that have inquired about the situation of the man from Terrassa during all this time – this does not mean making an offer – are: Ajax – they were the first –, Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham, Newcastle, West Ham, Nottingham Forest, Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Leverkusen, Leipzig, Benfica, and Porto, among other more exotic offers such as from Mexican football or from the Persian Gulf countries.
However, the man from Terrassa was clear that if he were to take the reins of a dugout again, what would motivate him most would be to manage a national team. After a traumatic end at Barça, he decided he needed to stop and rest: between his playing career and his time as a coach, he hadn't stopped for over two decades.
Once this sabbatical year was over, he began to consider the option of returning to coaching, but a national team. Xavi does not want to leave Barcelona permanently, where he is focused on his family and raising his two children. This decision, focused on the more personal sphere, helps to understand why he has preferred national team football. As this newspaper already published, one of the projects that most appealed to the coach was that of the Moroccan national team. After the resignation in March of Walid Regragui, the coach who led the African team to the semifinals of the 2022 Qatar World Cup, Xavi's name re-entered the scene. The Moroccan national team contacted him to make a statement after Regragui's departure following the defeat in the Africa Cup final.
But Xavi did not want to take the reins of the Moroccan team with so little preparation time before the 2026 World Cup. The coach's intention at that time was to start a project from scratch and with long-term planning. That is, leading the new World Cup cycle from 2026 to 2030, as the Netherlands has offered him. The door to Morocco remained half-open, pending what would happen with Mohamed Ouahbi, who took charge after having managed the North African U-20 team. This Belgian of Moroccan parents managed the senior team at the World Cup, with a contract until 2030, and Morocco ratified its confidence in him after this summer's World Cup event. With the Morocco option ruled out, other national teams became interested in Xavi, with the Netherlands being the chosen option.
