Xavier Hernández Creus · Spain
Photo : CC BY 4.0 — Meysam Mehabadi
Xavi played 505 league matches for Barcelona and completed more passes than anyone had thought to count before people started counting. He was the pivot of the side that won four Champions Leagues and of the Spain team that won Euro 2008, the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012 — the only nation to have won three consecutive major tournaments.
His value was almost invisible in the metrics available at the time. He rarely scored, rarely tackled and rarely ran far. What he did was receive the ball under pressure and move it forward before the pressure arrived, several hundred times a match, which turned out to be the whole system.
He left for Al Sadd in 2015, came back to coach Barcelona from 2021 to 2024, and won a league title in his second season. He never won the Ballon d’Or, finishing third in 2009 and 2010 behind teammates.
Club career
| Years | Club | Apps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997–1999 | Barcelona B | 55 | 3 |
| 1998–2015 | Barcelona | 505 | 58 |
| 2015–2019 | Al Sadd | 82 | 20 |
| Total | 642 | 81 |
International career
| Years | Team | Caps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Spain U17 | 10 | 2 |
| 1997–1998 | Spain U18 | 10 | |
| 1999 | Spain U20 | 6 | 2 |
| 1998–2001 | Spain U21 | 26 | 7 |
| 2000 | Spain U23 | 6 | 2 |
| 2000–2014 | Spain | 133 | 13 |
Honours
Dashed = runner-up.
Related legends
Career figures compiled from public records. Competitive senior appearances only.