Xavi set to part ways with Barcelona FC

FC Barcelona coach Xavi Hernández has announced that he will leave the club at the end of the current season. Xavi made his announcement in the post-game press conference at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys following his side’s chaotic 5-3 defeat at home to Villarreal, which once saw them claw their way back with goals from Gerard Moreno and Ilias Akhomach. ‘I want to be a solution for Barça’, coach Xavi Hernández told club president Joan Laporta, vice-president Rafa Yuste and Sporting Director Deco of his decision to leave his post as first team coach at the end of the season. “I had taken days ago but today was the moment to announce it,” he said. Xavi reiterated that one of his main motives was his love for the club: “I don’t want to be a problem. I want to be a solution for Barça as I was two years ago.” A Barça legend as a player, Xavi knows FC Barcelona better than anyone and is convinced that the team need now “a change in direction.” Xavi said that his departure at the end of the season “takes the tension out of the situation and gives the dressing room, the staff and the club a bit of room to change the dynamic.” “I think the players could not free themselves up. I don’t want to be a problem for the club, but the opposite. Right now, if I think with my head and think about the club, the solution and the best thing is for me to leave in June, that is how I feel. “I think this decision will help unblocking the team and the mood in here. I just told the president (Joan) Laporta now. We’ve had a meeting, it was a very human conversation, just with common sense. The trust from them is still fantastic. “But I believe this is the moment to say this. I don’t make my decisions following money, my contract will never be a problem. I just make my choices following my heart. I don’t need anything more.”