Far from retracting or taking a step back, after a thousand criticisms for complaining about the dry state of the Getafe grass and alluding to the lack of habit of his footballers playing in the sunlight at 4:15 p.m., Xavi Hernández reaffirmed his words from the previous Sunday, vindicating his arguments. “No matter how many memes they make me, the sun bothers me and I will always say it,” he repeated. Barça-Atlético takes place at the same time this Sunday.
Xavi sustained with a long speech that old claim that has made him the fodder for criticism and ridicule. “The surface is essential in the game”, he opined, giving examples of other sports in which an identical standard is maintained in all stadiums or pavilions. In soccer, the height of the grass is also delimited within certain margins. In the Champions League there is a minimum watering time on the pitch.
Xavi affirmed that he feels impelled, from his position as coach, to demand that in football there be “a rule for the surface” for the sake of the show. “I don’t have to shut up” he stated, denying that those protests expressed in Getafe had anything to do with the final result, in which Barça did not offer their best version and was unable to overcome the initial 0-0.
deep convictions
“In golf, if the grass is not good, you don’t play; in tennis, if it rains, the game stops; (in basketball) if it’s wet when Lebron James shoots, the one with the mop passes… and I can put the field with puddles, right? Who benefits from this?” she wondered, insisting it wasn’t a tantrum over the disappointing result. “If we want a show, we will take care of the surface”, said.
But he will continue with his convictions, deeper than eventual. “What does the sun harm us? Sure, because the field dries up. We don’t like it. I’ll say it today, tomorrow and next week, after 200,000 more memes, I don’t care, I’m not going to stop,” he concluded, after Xavi having appointed another addressee to ask him the crux of the matter: “The question is for Quique and why he didn’t water the field and why it was higher than usual”.