Xavi Hernández’s first 10 rules at FC Barcelona

Xavi Hernandez made it very clear in his presentation as a new coach of the FC Barcelona that the pillars of your project are based on “order and demand”. To achieve this challenge, the Egarense has a series of rules and regulations that he has learned throughout his time as a player, “when we have had order and discipline, things have gone well, but when we have not had order or discipline, everything has gone wrong and has ended badly” .

The Spanish newspaper As had access to a decalogue of rules that from now on will be governed within the Blaugrana dressing room:

1) Players must be an hour and a half before training. Until now, a certain relaxation was allowed in terms of the time they had to be in the dressing room, taking into account that the sessions began at 11:00 (from Barcelona). As of this Tuesday, it was over to arrive half an hour or twenty minutes earlier. Everyone must be 90 minutes in advance. The goal is to have time to prepare for training sessions and for the players to have a quiet breakfast. Also to be able to make some individual talks to comment on aspects of the work. That means that from now on, the arrival deadline will be 09:30. The arrival control will be carried out by the delegate Carles Naval.

2) Staff must show up two hours before training. Xavi is the first to set an example, so his assistants and the rest of the locker room members have to ‘sign in’ 120 minutes before training, with the aim that when the players start to arrive, they have everything ready to start their session .

3) Players eat at the Sports City. Voluntariness is over. As of this Tuesday, all the players of the first team will have lunch and dinner in the dining room of the Blaugrana facilities under the parameters set by the club’s nutritionists. A correct diet can prevent injuries and improve physical preparation.

4) Fines are instituted. Since Luis Enrique left, the sanctions for minor, serious or very serious fouls have disappeared, on the grounds that footballers are professional enough to know what they have and what they don’t have to do. The truth is that this type of management can work in an ideal scenario, but in real life it is much more complicated. Xavi lived in the time of Rijkaard as the costumes were diluted by the relaxation in the rules and as Guardiola established a rigid code of conduct, which ended up bearing fruit very soon.

5) Exponential penalties. The fines will be fixed with a geometric rhythm and not an arithmetic one. That means that if a player is late for training he would pay the lightest penalty, 100 euros, for the second penalty, it would be 200, but if he repeats a third, it would rise to 400, and so on. Some players, in the time of Luis Enrique, reached 6,000 euros in fines in a single season.

6) 48 hours before a game you can’t be home late. When the team is two days away from playing a game, it is prohibited to arrive later than midnight. It is considered that the player must be aware that he has to arrive at the game in the best possible conditions and one of the non-negotiable requirements is to lead an orderly life and even more so on the eve of the games.

7) Meritocracy. You play like you train and meritocracy is the only way to success. Only those who train the best and who have the most commitment at work will have options to be starters. The rest will be on the bench or in the worst case will not be called.

8) Control of extra-sports activities. Footballers can have other facets that are not strictly football, but if these end up affecting their performance, by needing to travel or dedicate many hours, they will have to be supervised by the coaching staff. You cannot make private trips of several hours by plane during the season without the explicit permission of the coach.

9) Risk activities prohibited. No more seeing a player surfing or riding an electric bike. This type of practice is sanctioned as a very serious offense and would pass to the legal department as it is considered a flagrant breach of the contract.

10) Good image. The players are a fundamental part of the club and they have to be the first to set an example. Empathic with fans must be shown and reprehensible attitudes are prohibited. During the trips they must comply with the rules of conduct and encourage Barcelona at all times. (D)