BARCELONA: Barcelona president Joan Laporta said on Friday he has received glowing reports about Xavi Hernandez’s credentials as coach and admitted he would like to have him as Barca coach during his presidency.

But Laporta refused to confirm Xavi will succeed Ronald Koeman, who was sacked on Wednesday night, and maintained Barca have “other options”.

Laporta’s enthusiastic assessment of Barca’s legendary former midfielder will be taken as a strong indication that he is the preferred replacement for Koeman.

After a glittering career at Camp Nou, Xavi left in 2015 to play for Al Sadd in Qatar before becoming coach of the team two years ago.

“I said it when he went to Qatar, that Xavi would end up being the coach of Barca, in fact I would like him to be coach of Barca during my presidency — what I don’t know is when,” said Laporta in a press conference on Friday.

“It is true the reports we have about him are very good. I have not followed Al Sadd, but we have talked about Bara games on the phone. We have watched games together almost. Let me say no more. For all the talk of Xavi there are also other options. Barca have other options.”

Koeman was let go on Wednesday following a 1-0 loss at Rayo Vallecano that left Barcelona in ninth place in La Liga. That followed painful losses to Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Benfica and Bayern Munich this season.

Barca promoted reserve team coach Sergi Barjuan the next day to act as caretaker coach. Laporta said Barjuan will be in charge for Saturday’s home game against Alaves and possibly next week’s Champions League match at Dynamo Kiev.

He admitted he should have dismissed Koeman sooner.

“Looking at the situation as of today, it probably would have been the best decision [to terminate Koeman’s contract before],” Laporta said. “Now it is easy to say that but that are circumstances that led us to wait. We thought that Koeman needed more time. I take full responsibility but the situation got to a point that was unsustainable.”

Published in Dawn, October 30th, 2021