Xavi: a glorified Denilson – Part I

Five Spanish League titles (1998-99, 2004-05, 2005-06, 2008-09, 2009-10), One Spanish Cup (2008-09), Four Spanish Supercup’s (2005, 2006, 2009, 2010), Two UEFA Champions League medals (2005-06, 2008-09), One UEFA Super Cup (2009), One FIFA Club World Cup (2009) and that’s just on a domestic level. On an international level Xavi has won the FIFA World Cup (2010) and the UEFA European Football Championship (2008). These are honours of the highest calibre. So what justification is there to suggest that Xavi is not as good as he is made out to be? I am not here to say that he is a bad player; just that he is not even remotely world class.

I will begin with a problem that is all too common in football and the mass media. This is the glorification of players and teams when they are dominating, and the intense scrutiny they face when they are not. In light of the incredible success Barcelona have had in the last two years Xavi has been described by many as the best midfielder in the world for his creativity, fantastic technique and passing ability, all of which is partially true but this was not always the case. Barcelona have not always dominated football as they are now. In fact they went 4 years without winning anything at all and this was as recent as the beginning of the millennium. The spine of the team then was largely the same too, with Xavi, Valdes, Puyol, and to an extent Eto’o some of the first names on the team sheet. Xavi was just another player back then and not the architect of the greatest football team to have ever played in the history of mankind that he is now.

To add justification to my claim I will make a simple comparison. As an example I will compare Xavi to Denilson of Arsenal. Although they are not players of identical style or ability, Denilson has drawn criticism because of the purpose he plays in the Arsenal team, particularly from his own fans. Some may suggest that a fairer comparison would be between Xavi and Fabregas, but Fabregas plays a much more advanced role in that he has the talent and ability to score goals. Without being disrespectful to Denilson’s ability to score goals I will use his as a comparator instead. The arguments against Denilson largely center on his failure to contribute in attack and his inability to provide adequate cover for the defence. However it must be made clear that Denilson is neither an attacking midfielder (as is Fabregas) nor a strictly speaking defensive midfielder (a job covered by Alex Song). He is simply a central midfielder. His role can be compared directly to Xavi who has a similar position in the pitch in that there is a much more advanced midfielder in front of him (Iniesta) and a more defensive minded one behind him (Yaya Toure and now Sergio Busquets).

Just as Barcelona have dominated, Arsenal have struggled; failing to win a single trophy since the 2004/2005 FA Cup triumph over Manchester United. More to the point, Denilson has been heavily criticised whereas Xavi has been glorified. However, analysing a few statistics will show little justification for this criticism. Taking into account Barcelona’s Champions league semi-final first round against Inter Milan it is clear that Xavi not only plays a similar role to Denilson, but it is a much more exaggerated one. Barcelona lost that match 3-1 but Xavi had 93 successful passes. This was 20 more than the next player on the pitch (Busquets) and an incredible 71 more than the nearest Inter player (Zanetti). However Xavi failed to get a goal or an assist. In fact most of his passing was elementary and side-ways. Wesley Sneijder on the other hand only had 10 touches of the ball yet he got a goal and an assist. Xavi’s performance was a demonstration of useless possession play. This is an example of something I like to call an ‘unstat’. Although the statistic was impressive, it was inevitably worthless. There are many other examples of unstats, including where Chelsea beat Aston Villa 7-1 and Drogba didn’t play. Does this mean that Chelsea are a higher scoring team without Drogba? Of course not. How about when Arsenal went over 20 games unbeaten without Cesc Fabregas in the 2008/2009 season? Is getting rid of Fabregas the key to building another invincible team? Like many, I would have to say no.

Although Denilson doesn’t get as many passes in a game as Xavi he is more of a team player. Instead of focussing solely on his ability to get the most passes he does (contrary to what many people believe) contribute to Arsenal’s attack while playing a significant role in the defensive play. Undoubtedly he has made some mistakes; most notably his failure to pick up Rooney’s run in Arsenals 3-1 loss to Manchester United or his failure to keep up with Mamady Sidibe in Arsenals 3-1 loss to Stoke City. However his role in the team, although not as self-centered as Xavi’s, is beneficial to Arsenal as a whole, especially considering his tender age. An example is from Arsenals 2-0 win against West Ham. Denilson scored Arsenals first goal and notched up a healthy 73 passes, with an astonishing 100% success rate. This is a fine example of a good statistic. Arshavin, not renowned for saying anything more that 5 words in a sentence, let alone two complete sentences unless it is of unequivocal importance has also lauded praise on the world-class attributes that Denilson possesses, stating after Arsenal’s 3-0 win over Portsmouth that:

“Denilson, who played center midfield, in my opinion, was the master of all players. He selects all the balls right and reviews of all those who have not ran past him”

Denilson is also much more of a player at his age than Xavi ever was. At the age of 22 Denilson impressively notched up 6 goals and 2 assists in 28 games last season including wonder strikes against Standard Liege, Hull City and Everton. To add insult to Xavi’s ‘talents’ Denilson also scored all of his goals from outside the box. Xavi at the same age unsurprisingly produced only 4 goals and 0 assists. A season later he only got 3 goals and a disappointing 5 the year after. In fact, he went 4 years without producing a single assist (2001/2002 to 2004/2005). Denilson’s talents are so underestimated that in 2008/2009 he made 2009 passes (average 59 a game), ranked first in the Premier League.

Statistically speaking therefore, Xavi is not very impressive. He is a poor man’s Denilson. Although difficult to compile an accurate number it is not unreasonable to suggest that his pass to assist ratio is woeful – possibly the worst of any ‘world-class’ midfielder’. However in stark contrast to this failure (or his failure to score a reasonable number of goals) he does notch up an incredible amount of assists, as shown in the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9CR0nV_8Z4

Granted, some of those passes seemed fantastic but we must be realistic in our assessment of Xavi’s role in the build up. Were they great assists or did the goalscorer simply make the best of a hopeful pass? I think it’s abundantly clear that it’s the latter. Let me care to explain why. Such is the wealth of attacking talent at Barcelona, particularly of Messi in 2009-10 and the incredible trident of Messi, Eto’o and Henry in 2008-09 that we fail to be amazed at what they do anymore. Messi, who at the tender age of only 23 has continuously raised the bar in terms of the quality of goals scored that one wonders whether there is anything more he could do to amaze us. In fact, on second analysis of that video Messi on numerous occasions controls the ball elegantly in situations where the average, or perhaps even world class player, would fail to do so. Having done so he then goes on to score some cattle-prod-electrifying goals. They were not simple tap-ins as one would expect from a ‘good’ assist. Xavi’s ‘assists’ are therefore fine examples of unstats. Another example is Xavi’s performance in the 2010 world cup. He notched up a phenomenal 669 passes. However he only got one assist and this was from a corner. Cesc Fabregas on the other hand got an assist from open play in the World Cup Final – something Xavi can only dream about. In fact, even Emile Heskey had a better pass to assist ratio than Xavi, having set up Gerrard’s goal in England’s opener and notching up 61 passes in total.

Furthermore, Barcelona play in a weaker league than the Premier League. Defensively, Premier League teams are not as naive as their Spanish counterparts and there is potential for any Premier League team to beat any of the so called top-four. Also the spread of points is more even across the Premier League than it is in La Liga. Whereas the top six teams in La Liga were separated by a jaw-dropping 41 points, the top six teams in the Premier League were separated by paltry 24 points. The lack of real competition for Barcelona and Real Madrid is further evidenced by the fact that between them they only lost 5 games whereas Chelsea and Manchester United lost an incredible 13. To add weight to the feats of Premier League players, Frank Lampard scored 22 goals and got 17 assists and he has done this consistently for Chelsea for over six years. He has achieved this in a league where the competition is tougher and has done so without the wealth of attacking talent that Barcelona posses (apart from Drogba there have hardly been any other truly world class strikers at Chelsea akin to the likes of Messi, Eto’o or Ronaldinho). It would therefore seem incredibly unlikely for Xavi to come into the Premier League and repeat his so called ‘mastery’. In fact it would be quite an achievement for him to be even half the player that Denilson is right now, let alone a truly world class player like Frank Lampard or Cesc Fabregas (who incidentally got 15 goals and 15 assists in only 27 games last season).

So to sum up, Xavi really isn’t as good as he is cracked up to be. He is a fine example of what happens when a mediocre player is surrounded by truly world class footballers. If Chelsea ever go through a bad patch, you can bet that Mikel will be one of the first players to get blamed. Similarly for Manchester United the same fate is held for Carrick.