On Wednesday, Xavi Hernandez will celebrate his 100th match as head coach of Barcelona when his side face off against Porto in their second Champions League group stage fixture.
Xavi has overseen a seismic change since taking the reins in November 2021, and ahead of the match in Portugal, he spoke to MD to pick out 10 aspects of his time in charge so far.
He identified the Spanish Super Cup victory over Real Madrid in January as his best match, with it being the first trophy that he won as head coach. As for the most special victory, Xavi pinpointed the 4-2 victory over Espanyol last season, which secured the club’s first La Liga title in four years.
Xavi picked out Real Madrid and Bayern Munich as his most difficult opponents so far, with the 3-0 loss to the German champions last season as his toughest defeat.
In terms of most difficult players faced, Xavi picked out three players: Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford, as well as Karim Benzema and Vinicius Junior.
There’s no doubt that Xavi has had a very successful time at Barcelona so far, and he will hope that the match against Porto goes as well as his first 99 matches have as a whole.