A race like Xavi Hernandezfull of titles as a footballer of FC Barcelona and the Spanish team, could have been very different if he had not personally intervened to prevent the sacking of his first coach in the Barca first team, louis van gaal. He did this by scoring a goal, the first scored by the then young youth squad in the League, of the season. 1988-89. He New Zorrilla This is the scene of that saving goal, which served to win that game and ensure that the coach who debuted him in the elite will not lose his position. This Tuesday (10 pm) Xavi returns to the Valladolid stadium almost for the first time as well: ten days after winning his first League as culé coach.
At 18 years old, Xavi allowed Van Gaal to literally eat the nougats from Christmas in 1998. On December 20, 1998, FC Barcelona played Zorrilla with Van Gaal just one defeat away from the sack. Tenth in the standings despite the excellent team in his charge, with four consecutive defeats and five draws in the first 14 games, Van Gaal is on the brink of the precipice.
In the previous game, the Camp Nou called for his sacking after seeing Barça go down 1-3 against Villarreal. ‘Last Judgment’, Mundo Deportivo’s headline on the cover. “It’s important to know if I’m with the squad,” the Dutch coach asked rhetorically on the eve of the visit to Valladolid. Unexpectedly, with a head he usually only uses to think on the field, Xavi hit the ball very close to the goal line with his head to make it 0-1 after a quarter of an hour late will be final. . Pillo to anticipate plays, Xavi caught the ball without an owner by the goal line after a shot by Rivaldo and the clearance of the blanquivioleta goalkeeper Stop. That day, Barça first played Hesp, Okunowo, Pellegrino, Reiziger, Sergi, Cocu, Xavi, Luis Enrique, Figo, Kluivert and Rivaldo. Anderson, Zenden and Abelardo also played, replacing Rivaldo, angering the Brazilian star at Van Gaal.
That goal, atypical for its execution in the biography of one of the best midfielders in history, was a turning point in Barça’s progress in that championship. Van Gaal, the coach who brought the European Cup back to Ajax two decades after the Rinus Michels-Johan Cruyff era, celebrated his little thinker’s goal from the bench. Almost four months earlier, on August 18, Van Gaal gave Xavi the chance to make his first-team debut in Mallorca, on the occasion of the Spanish Super Cup. Although Barça went down 2-1, Xavi also scored that day in Palma. Van Gaal’s Barça ended up winning the 1998–99 League eleven points ahead of second in the table, Real Madrid. All thanks to that goal by Xavi in Nuevo Zorrilla Valladolid, the stadium where this Tuesday he will sit on the bench that saved Van Gaal.
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
