Xavi is considered one of Man United’s oldest foes who left Sir Alex Ferguson ‘dizzy’ on the Barcelona ‘carousel’ in TWO Champions League finals and had Wayne Rooney begging for mercy

Pep Guardiola once told a young Xavi ‘you will retire me’ at Barcelona. That prophecy could soon be reignited with another layer of meaning. 

This is the possibility that has been sprung on us in the last 24 hours. As the Erik ten Hag rumour wrecking ball continues to smash around M16, every time he sits in the dugout spun into a sackable offence, new names spring forth. 

Gareth Southgate. Kieran McKenna. Thomas Tuchel. Thomas Frank. Thomas the Tank Engine. Ruud van Nistelrooy. Now the fabled Xavi Hernandez. 

Except it’s not just rumours. Mail Sport understands negotiators have twice made contact with Xavi’s camp in recent months. On Thursday a delegation headed up by chief executive Omar Berrada soared to Barcelona, unexplained. And Xavi has previously revealed his ambition to manage in England. Hmm.

If Ten Hag does go – and respect to him, he’s won two trophies, remember – Xavi wouldn’t be the worst appointment. He managed Barca to the LaLiga title in 2022-23. Not everyone wins that badge at Scouts. But thanks to his own brilliance, it would resurrect memories of him tearing United to shreds in his playing career.

Xavi twice masterclassed United on the grandest of club stages: the 2009 and 2011 Champions League finals. The only times he beat United in six attempts. The times when it mattered most. 

This Spaniard maestro admitted that Paul Scholes was his role model. They first shared the grass in 1998. Xavi’s only regret from his playing career is that they were never team-mates. But on those nights in 2009 and 2011, it was Xavi, Andres Iniesta, and Sergio Busquets who ran the midfield, with an antique Scholes unable to stop the tide from the bench. 

There’s a clip dedicated to Xavi’s performance in the 2009 Champions League final. Six minutes and 35 seconds of him just pulling the strings with mesmeric simplicity. Xavi seldom strayed far from the centre circle that night, orchestrating the tempo with simple passes, always an outball to a team-mate in trouble. 

‘They get you on that carousel and they make you dizzy with their passing,’ Sir Alex Ferguson said ahead of the final. Right he was. Barcelona only marginally dominated possession (51 per cent), but it was the way they moved the ball that undid United. 

The telepathic give-and-gos. First-time passes that bamboozled the most ardent press. As The Guardian summararised it: ‘The feathery touch of Barcelona left Manchester United bruised and beaten.’ 

After Samuel Eto’o’s early opener, Xavi set up Messi for the second that night – his 30th assist of the season. A perfectly weighted cross finding the Argentinian’s head to make it 2-0 on 70 minutes. His contribution wasn’t just intangible in the pockets, but in a big way: hitting the post with a free-kick, sliding Samuel Eto’o through for an almost certain goal, working space out wide and pumping crosses into the box. He could have had four or five assists.

He was awarded man of the match when the music stopped. This was Guardiola-ball at its most mind-bendingly unfamiliar, when this sort of football felt alien to the English conscience. Now everybody wants to play like that, but few ever will.

If you can’t beat him, steal him. Xavi told The Times in 2021 that Ferguson once tried to sign him, but the grey skies of Manchester held little allure for a man with Blaugrana in his blood. 

‘Manchester United approached me once through Sir Alex Ferguson’s brother, but my answer was very quick. I was focused on Barca, my priority was only Barca. I am a fan from the very inside of myself and that’s why was impossible for me to leave,’ he said.  

United were out for vengeance in 2011. Losing in Rome was heartbreaking enough, but surely not at Wembley, the cradle of English football and the theatre for their first European Cup triumph in 1967-68 when they sent Eusebio packing?

Granted, there was no Cristiano Ronaldo this time, but there was still Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Edwin van der Sar, Ryan Giggs, Michael Carrick, that heartbeat so fatal to other teams as they romped to the Premier League title by nine points. 

Barca had other ideas. They were up after 27 minutes after Xavi glided through the midfield, nobody daring to get close, and slipped Pedro through with a deft pass for the opening goal. Neither Ryan Giggs nor Fabio had risked putting a foot in and Xavi, looking as if he would pass the other way, flicked it to Pedro with the slickest of touches. 

Rooney pulled one back with an emphatic finish seven minutes later after a swaggering solo run. 

But no Barcelona game of that era would be complete without Lionel Messi’s spellbinding skill and he damped United’s hopes shortly after the break with a fizzling left-footed strike that gave Van der Sar no chance. A lovely curler from David Villa capped it off. 

Xavi was at the heart of it all. He was a constant threat slaloming through the midfield, advancing with pace and rendering United unsure of how to contain him. In the second half he cracked off a long shot and forced Van der Sar into a diving save. Get too close and he will bewitch you. Too far and he will punish. 

Towards the end Rooney pleaded for mercy. ‘Rooney came up to me before the end of the game,’ Xavi revealed when he was managing Barca. ‘It must have been around the eighty-minute mark, something like that.

‘And he said to me: “That’s enough. You’ve won. You can stop playing the ball around now.”‘ 

But only the final whistle brought mercy. Guardiola’s side had 67.9 per cent of the ball that night, complete suffocation. Messi, Villa, and Pedro capped off a season where they managed 98 goals as a trio in all competitions. 

As the curtain fell, Xavi had bragging rights in the passing department: 95.3 per cent success rate, 141 in total – more than United’s midfield. Park Ji-sung, Ryan Giggs, Michael Carrick and Antonio Valencia managed 102 between them. 

‘They do mesmerise you the way they pass it,’ Ferguson said. ‘No one has given us a hiding like that. In my time as manager, it’s the best team I’ve faced.’

Ferdinand put it this way: ‘We were here at Wembley in the final and we actually got abused that game by Barcelona, they were brilliant.

‘Your confidence is low anyway, you are trying to get the ball back off him (Busquets). 

‘He turned and said to me “Ferdinand, Vidic, boom boom boom” [referring to their long passes].

‘Honestly, I felt like a Conference player.’

Xavi didn’t win any of his other games against United. They drew 3-3 home and away in the 1998-99 Champions League group stages. In the semis in 2007-08, Scholes scored one of the greatest goals of his career to send United to the final with a 1-0 win at Old Trafford, having tied 0-0 at the Nou Camp. 

Ferguson, unflinching, went to town on his gum. 

If Xavi does become the latest of his descendants, he will be the first Spaniard to lead the club, attempting to sprinkle some continental flair in a place desperate for revival. Across town, his mentor awaits.