Barcelona legend could have played for PSG after leaving the club in 2015
In around four hours, Barcelona head coach Xavi Hernandez will be entering his first-ever UEFA Champions League quarterfinal match as manager as his team takes on PSG.
The game has a lot of significance for Xavi, for he goes into it with a lot on the line for Barcelona and will be facing off against one of his former managers and mentors in Luis Enrique.
What adds to the intrigue is that Xavi, who played only for Barcelona in Europe before moving to Al Sadd, could have turned up for PSG.
PSG wanted Xavi in 2015
Indeed, as reported by AS, Xavi could have ended up joining PSG in the summer of 2015 when he left Barcelona to move to Al Sadd.
After leading the Barça team to a historic treble in 2014/15, Xavi felt it was time for him to move on and signed for Qatari giants Al Sadd.
However, that move could have led him to play for PSG as Laurent Blanc, then-manager of Les Parisiens, requested the Ligue 1 giants to sign Xavi on a season-long loan from Qatar.
Given that the owner of Al Sadd happened to be the brother of Tamim Bin Hamad al Thani, the Emir of Qatar and owner of PSG, the possibility of the deal happening looked very real.
But the move did not materialise and Xavi went on to play in Qatar for four years until 2019 before hanging up his boots and then becoming their manager.
Xavi the manager also liked by some in PSG
In fact, there are some voices in the PSG hierarchy who would have preferred to see Xavi come in as manager of Barcelona after Mauricio Pochettino was sacked.
There was criticism directed towards Al Sadd from within the French club for letting Xavi go back to Barcelona in November 2021.
In Paris, many considered Xavi an ideal and very accessible coach because of the close relationship between Al Sadd and PSG. However, by the time Pochettino was sacked, Xavi was back at Barça.
Furthermore, some people think that, because of the good relationship the 44-year-old has always had with the Qatari emirate, Xavi could be an option to manage PSG in the not too distant future.
