BARCELONA // Barcelona are about to lose not only their most successful player, but their best talker, too. An articulate football addict, Xavi would wave away Barcelona's press officer who was trying to curtail a 20-minute interview because he wanted to speak longer.
Xavi, 35, will feature in his final Barcelona game on Saturday in Berlin as he aims to win his 25th trophy with the club he played for as man and boy. His team will miss him on the pitch and off it where he set the template for what others said.
There are other intelligent speakers in the Barca dressing room including Gerard Pique, but one of the most strident and cerebral voices is Javier Mascherano. The Argentine will never have the status of Xavi. He’s not Catalan, a midfield metronome nor a one-club man who can talk as easily of Catalan politics as Celta Vigo’s reserves, but Mascherano is an engaging character.
Six Barca players faced the media this week but the Argentina international, with 150 appearances for his country, was the most interesting. He analysed context and oxymorons, spoke with confidence and a forthrightness lacking in some of his cliché-ridden teammates.
“It would be reckless to say we’re going to win a third title,” he said of Barca’s bid for the treble when they take on Juventus in the Uefa Champions League final. “We’re against a team with the same situation as us and we’ll prepare as we’ve done for the previous 59 games. It’s a historic tie but we don’t change what brought us here. If we are here it’s because we’ve done things right.”
Mascherano played in 46 of those games, with no goals and just two assists. A midfielder, he has played out of position as a central defender, but he works, providing the platform for Messi and Co.
Asked if his team were invincible with his compatriot Messi, Mascherano said: “Many things depend on him. But this is a collective, a team game. But he has the ability and talent to do what others can’t. Nobody is invincible; it’s an oxymoron in football and life. We’ll try to take care of all the details, we won’t leave anything to chance, but there are many things that can happen which are not under our control.”
Barca have had control this season, with Mascherano an enforcer to add substance to his team’s style. The man known as “The Little Chief” plays in what has been the league’s meanest defence for two decades. The success of the former River Plate, Corinthians, West Ham United and Liverpool player is no surprise to those in Argentina where he’s already a hero and the butt of jokes after being their best player in Brazil last year.
“If we sent Mascherano to negotiate our national debt, he’d come back and we wouldn’t owe any money,” goes one, as well as: “Mascherano would win Masterchef with just a little pasta and butter” or “Mascherano thought up Google’s algorithm on the back of a serviette.”
The 30-year-old midfielder, with five seasons at Camp Nou, will come up against Carlos Tevez, a teammate at international level and formerly by his side at Corinthians and West Ham.
“Carlos’s career is there for everybody to see,” he said. “It’s formidable. He’s one of the best players I’ve shared a field with. He has a winning personality with all the teams he has played for. He has marked an era and when you play against him you have to be very careful. He’s a player who likes to play these types of games and he’s very important for Juve.”
The man responsible for snuffing out Tevez is likely to be his close friend Mascherano, another of the intriguing battles to look forward to in Berlin.
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