#abidal

Xavi: “My brain works like a processor: it stores data, informations. Turning my head helps me do it. And that's not only important, it's fundamental to master space-time. I think: My team-mate is man-marked, so I turn my head to look for another solution. Behind me, an opponent says to himself: 'I'm going to take the ball from him, he's turning his back, he does not see me.' Except that I saw him. Just as I saw that the player who is marking my team-mate moving forward at the same time as his partner. Before they reach me, I passed the ball to the same team-mate who got free. I found spaces, solutions in a few seconds. What is Messi doing today? Why is he incomparable? Because he has everything. He does not make random passes. He does not get rid of the ball in silly ways. No, Messi attracts the defenders and then, pam, he passes to his free team-mate. And I think: ‘Holy sh*t, he dribbled four and created spaces for his partners. He is very strong.’”

Interviewer: “Not everyone has the chance to have Messi in the same team..”

Xavi: “Everyone does not play for Barça either. Barcelona play a game very different from others, because we learn to think. When I went to the NT, those who played in other teams did not play the same way. They did not see football in the same way. It was the same when new players signed at Barça. The first time I saw Abidal, I was devastated..”

Interviewer: “Was he a disaster?”

It’s not always the club that conspire against the players who go away, often they are the ones who want to leave. Sometimes they push them to do so, it is true (see in Khedira's case), but often they want to go. 

Iker was driven by the whistling of fans, he wanted to go because he was as sensitive as he could no longer play with whistles. 

While in the case of Pepe he said months ago that it was time for him to leave the Real and the reason is clear: Varane is better than him now, and everyone knows it. So he should be there as a reserve, but it is fair to go to another club. Replacing one who has always been a holder, with a new player who deserves more time over time, is never easy. 

The injury issue is complicated: some coaches makes playing anyway with physical problems, others don’t. Zizou is one who doesn’t take risks, and thanks to this the relapse is drastically diminished, I remember the previous years the recurrences of injuries were numerous and always because they were badly cured, and now there are some relapses (see coentrao and bale) but these are different cases because they have more serious and complicated problems (so Pepe). Karim also took months for something that is not well understood and it is not yet clear whether it is fully healed, if you see never plays throughout the game and there or are problems with the coach, and in their case we know that it’s not so, or there are physical reasons. But someone said something? No!

Is true that Real is a ruthless club who doesn’t look in the face anybody (with club I mean high chiefs, perez and councilors), but it happens when you're dealing with teams that invest so many millions each year. Barcelona is the same (Abidal has told crazy things about it) and if we go to see the others who spend so much, it's the same thing.

James thing is strange, but it remembers me Mou/Kakà: Kakà wanted stay there, loved real and his teammates loved him, but Mou for strange reasons hated him so much to take him always on the bench or treated him like a crap, but as coach he was so good, everybody loved him (not in the third year, but this is other story), but with ricky he was a big asshole! I don’t know why in some cases coach and player don’t take good with each other, is so sad. this don’t take away anything from a cleverness of a coach or a player, but this is the football. 

Former Barcelona defender Eric Abidal has quashed social media rumours of his demise, making it clear in a publish on Instagram that he’s alive and properly. There have been claims this week that Abidal had handed away as a consequence of issues from the liver transplant he underwent in 2012. Abidal, 46, was recognized with liver most cancers in 2011 however subsequently returned to soccer in…