The current season has not gone exactly as planned at FC Barcelona. While the club has met its objective of progressing to the Champions League knock-out rounds, the team’s performance has been far from convincing.
The team is eight points behind the league leaders Girona (with one game in hand ) in La Liga as things stand, and also missed out on the Spanish Super Cup trophy as they lost to Real Madrid last Sunday. Thus, the two trophies that Barcelona were defending seem to be going away from their hands this season.
As a result, Xavi’s position on the bench is highly uncertain, despite the confidence shown in him by Laporta and Deco. The head coach himself made it clear in the last press conference that he would willingly leave his position if he believed he was not being of help to the club.
In such a context, the club will have to do its homework not to be caught off-guard in case Xavi decides to leave, and it seems like Deco is already working behind the scenes for this purpose.
According to SPORT, the Barcelona Sporting Director is keeping an eye on several candidates, and one such candidate for being Xavi’s successor is the former Barcelona midfielder, Thiago Motta.
Deco has a very close relationship with Motta, and this association goes back to the time when both these individuals were playing for Barcelona between 2004 and 2007.
Motta’s entire coaching career up to now has been limited to Italy. His first job on the bench started at Genoa in October 2019, and went on till the end of the year. Then he took charge at Spezia in the summer of 2021, before joining Bologna for the 2022-23 season.
He has been performing well with Bologna, and his side currently occupies seventh position in Serie A, only two points away from a Champions League position.
