Xavi eyes national team role as he trades club chaos for family time

Xavi Hernández has a plan, and it involves fewer late-night training sessions and more dinners at home. The former FC Barcelona coach stated on July 17, 2026 that his next move in football will be toward a national team role, specifically because the schedule is kinder to people who also happen to have families.

What Xavi actually said

Xavi made clear he is not stepping back from football, just repositioning within it. He expressed interest in coaching at the World Cup, UEFA EURO, the Africa Cup of Nations, and the Asian Cup, which is a list broad enough to suggest he is keeping his options genuinely open rather than angling for one specific job.

These remarks did not come out of nowhere. Back in May 2025, Xavi had already signaled that national team management aligned better with his personal priorities. The July 2026 statement reads less like a revelation and more like a man following through on something he had been thinking about for a while.

The timing matters. Xavi left Barcelona in 2025 after a tenure that started in 2021 and produced genuine highs, including a La Liga title in the 2022-2023 season, alongside the messier stretches that tend to define the back half of most managerial stints at elite clubs. He extended his contract in 2024, then departed the following year.

The national team model and why it appeals

His playing career gives him credibility across those regions in ways few coaches can match. Xavi spent the later years of his playing career at Al Sadd in Qatar, which expanded his profile well beyond Europe. His coaching career began there too before Barcelona came calling. The Asian Cup mention in particular is not an idle gesture. He has genuine familiarity with football culture in that part of the world, which matters when a federation is deciding whether a foreign coach will land well with players and supporters.

The Spanish football association, the RFEF, is the obvious name that gets attached to any conversation about Xavi and international management. Spain is his country, his football identity is inseparable from the national team’s tiki-taka era, and he won a World Cup and two European Championships as a player. Spain already has Luis de la Fuente in the role following the 2024 European Championship victory, so the timing would have to align with a future vacancy.

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