Barcelona will look for a manager from ‘outside the club’ to succeed Xavi

Barcelona’s biggest problems, over the last few months, has been solving their managerial woes after Xavi announced that he intends to leave the club at the end of the season after the 3-5 defeat to Villarreal at home.

Since then, the club have been in an upwards struggle to convince Xavi to stay as they believe that changing the manager at this crucial point in their project will do more harm than good.

After weeks of trying to do the same, the final decision seems to have come down to today, where the board are meeting with Xavi to speak to him about his continuity, but have imposed some conditions on the same.

The Spanish coach is also said to be exhausted and wants a break from coaching football already after giving it his all to Barcelona over the last couple of seasons.

As it stands, he is closer to leaving the club than staying, especially on the back of news claiming that he is not ready to make changes to his coaching staff, as demanded by Barcelona.

What are Barcelona planning for their replacement?

According to a report by Gerard Romero, Barcelona have decided that in case Xavi leaves, they want a coach from the ‘outside’ instead of another ‘internal’ hiring.

This is presumably also why reports have claimed that Barcelona have decided against hiring Rafael Marquez from Barça Atletic despite his rather impressive job with the reserve side.

The Mexican’s lack of experience coaching a top side has been cited as enough reason for him not to take over the Barcelona job, especially with the young core of the team in need of a proper leader.

Barcelona’s search operation reaches Germany again

As far as the other options are concerned, it seems as if Barcelona have, once again, reached Germany and are targeting a move for either Hansi Flick or Thomas Tuchel, both of whom will be free to sign in the summer.

The latter is leaving Bayern Munich at the end of the season after a disappointing spell in Bundesliga, while the former is free to join any team after being sacked from the German National Team job.

Both of the coaches come with their respective problems, but they seem like the best bet for the Catalans right now.