RAPHINHA LOAD AGAINST XAVI: “I played when there was no other”

Monday 05th May 2025 08:48 PM

Raphinha lives a sweet time in Barça. Included in the pools for the next Golden Ball, his 31 goals and 25 assists have made him one of the referents of the Barca team, in which he also acts as a captain in many meetings. But it was not always like that, as it revealed in an interview with the journalist Isabela Pagliari. The Brazilian charged against his former coach, Xavi Hernández: “I felt that neither he nor the coaching staff trusted me.”

“when there was no other, I was there, and I played 90 minutes. And it gave everything, I resolved games. But When there was another one that could be in my position, I put him without thinking “explains the Brazilian footballer. In fact, he remembers a match against Manchester United in which he had scored a goal, given an assistance and was changed. “I was the first to be replaced, I could not believe it,” says the extreme, which reveals that he had “conversations to fix it with him”, but they were useless.

The data are devastating. With Xavi, among all competitions, he played 37 games, 25 of them as a starter and a total of 1,949 minutes, in which he scored 10 goals. With Flick, their statistics have nothing to do with: 52 games played, 48 as a starter. The minutes are more than double the last season (4,205) and goals, more than triple (31).

Because with Hansi Flick noticed a different treatment. “He cares about the players,” he says of a technician who called him during the Copa América to confirm that he had him. He considered playing in Saudi Arabia and He asked Neymar detailsbut a “deep” conversation with his wife changed her mind.

“I was close to playing with Italy”