As Manchester United and Barcelona played out a thrilling Europa League tie back in 2023, few would have imagined how things would unravel over the next 15 months.
At the time, Erik ten Hag appeared to be a man with a Midas touch. Almost every decision he made, during Manchester United’s flying start to 2023, worked out exactly as planned.
Be it utilising Wout Weghorst as a number ten at the Camp Nou, or bringing teenager Alejandro Garnacho off the bench in the return leg with the game in the balance.
Antony, the £82 million millstone around Ten Hag’s neck, even enjoyed his best moment in a Manchester United shirt as he curled in the winner on a glorious night.
Barcelona legend Xavi Hernandez, meanwhile, would end that campaign with a La Liga winners’ medal hanging around his neck.
Xavi, a figure of calm in a club for whom crisis had become commonplace, took control of a sinking ship and guided it masterfully back on course.
Manchester United reportedly eye former Barcelona boss Xavi
Flash forward to October 2024, however, and performances as thrilling and as coherent as United produced in the heart of that Barca battle have been few and far between since then.
Ten Hag hang onto his job at Man United despite links with Ruben Amorim and co. But every damaging defeat loosens his grip.
Xavi, meanwhile, was dumped unceremoniously by the Blaugrana board after committing the cardinal sin of a trophyless campaign.
Amid reports that Spain legend Xavi has emerged as an option to replace Ten Hag at Man United, meanwhile, the question is whether the 2010 World Cup winner could better harness the potential of a Red Devils squad which has largely underachieved since they vanquished Barcelona from Europe a year-and-a-half ago.
While a disciple of one Pep Guardiola, Xavi was not quite as wedded to his mentor’s purist principles. He was not afraid to embrace the darker arts, on occasions. A more pragmatic, results-driven approach.
But, still, those old Cruyffian principles underpinned much of his work in the Barcelona hotseat. His team still averaged the highest possession numbers in La Liga during the title-winning 2022/23 campaign, with Frenkie de Jong playing arguably the best football of his Barca career that year.
But while the Kings of Catalonia did manage to add De Jong to their trove of treasures, they were less successful when it came to signing the Dutchman’s former Ajax skipper.
A man who, should Xavi take the Man United reigns at some point down the line, could end up working alongside a man who labelled him a footballer with ‘Barcelona DNA’
Xavi is a big fan of Man United defender Matthijs de Ligt
“I like [him] a lot,” Xavi told Marca of one Matthijs de Ligt back in 2019, shortly after the towering centre-half had skippered Erik ten Hag’s Ajax to the verge of a Champions League final.
“[De Ligt and De Jong] would be very good for Barcelona. They don’t lose the ball, they bring it out well. They already have the Barcelona DNA coming from Ajax, which has always been a good school for us.”
Barca were pipped to the post by Juventus when De Ligt graduated from the esteemed Johan Cryuff Arena finishing school half-a-decade ago.
Around 12 months later, they saw a bid of £66 million rejected by the Bianconeri, per the Daily Mail, one year before Xavi would return to the Camp Nou as head coach.
Had things worked out differently, Matthijs de Ligt could have become the pillar upon which Xavi’s Barcelona backline was built upon.
But with the Spaniard lined up to join the Dutchman at Old Trafford should Ten Hag fail to keep the wolves from the door, Xavi and De Ligt could yet end up sharing a Manchester postcode instead.
“Yes, [I received offers from Paris Saint-Germain] and Barcelona,” De Ligt said after putting pen to paper with Juventus.
“I studied all the options and finally came to the conclusion that, at Juventus, I could grow more as a player with a different style that would make me more complete.”
While enduring a pretty mixed start to life in England, De Ligt at his best has shown himself as a centre-half capable of combining elite defensive talents with the technical qualities befitting of Barcelona.
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