FC Barcelona is hardly enjoying their best run of form at the moment. The Catalan giants have recently been struggling across any competition that they are playing in. The latest 1-1 draw against Valencia only adds to the sorrow that has been building up within Barcelona.
With this 1-1 draw, Barcelona are now winless in three consecutive games. Prior to the trip to Mestalla, Barcelona had already lost 4-2 to Girona in La Liga and 3-2 to Royal Antwerp in the UEFA Champions League. However, this is unfortunately not the first time a hat trick of misery has struck Xavi’s Barcelona.
As highlighted by SPORT, Xavi has now faced this specific kind of misery on multiple occasions. On at least five different points of his managerial run at Barça, the Spanish coach has suffered in three games in a row against various opponents.
The first of such an instance came in the 2021/22 season, the one in which Xavi debuted as a Blaugrana coach. In December of 2021, Barcelona suffered an away loss to Real Betis, then lost to Bayern Munich, and finished off with a 2-2 draw against Osasuna. That same season, this time in January of 2022, Barcelona suffered a similar fate.
A 1-1 draw to Granada was followed by a 3-2 defeat to Real Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup. The final nail in the coffin was the 3-2 defeat to Athletic Bilbao in the Copa Del Ray. The last two games of that same season, coupled with the first one from the 2022/23 season, again repeated such an instance.
A 0-0 draw against Getafe was followed by a 2-0 defeat to Villarreal and then another goalless stalemate against Rayo Vallecano. Last season, the 4-0 defeat to Real Madrid in the Copa Del Ray was followed by two goalless draws against Getafe and Girona.
Statistically speaking, Xavi is now inching dangerously close to the worst Barcelona manager ever in this regard. Ronald Koeman, a manager who was never really that popular, also had only two such unfortunate hat tricks during his time as Barcelona manager.
Ernesto Valverde experienced four such streaks during the 145 matches he managed while at Barcelona. Then comes Luis Enrique, tied on five with Xavi, across his 181 matches as Barcelona head coach. Pep Guardiola himself also had four separate examples of a similar misfortune.
Across his 247 games as Barcelona head coach, he suffered that same fate on four occasions. However, the worst record by far in this specific criteria is held by Frank Rijkaard, with the Dutchman having had to face this fate nine different times.
