Xavi, Iniesta, and Leo Messi are the three nominees for FIFA’s Ballon D’Or award for player of the year. Thus, underlining the overwhelming quality of Barca’s football.
Even with Real Madrid stuffing its ranks with high priced quality, the Catulanyan club managed to pull of another domestic league title winning both the Clasicos and also sending seven players to the World Cup. Both Xavi and Iniesta are inextricably linked with Spain’s maiden win.
Wesley Sneijder maybe feel hard done by. As an individual, he was the architect of Inter’s triple win as well as driving Netherlands to the World Cup final.
Still he comes up against the symbiotic relationship between Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi that drives them towards excellence. It is hard to separate out the individual contribution of each. All three are equally deserving winners. But if one had to choose, it would be Xavi. There are the critics of tiki taka but the man personifies the Barca style – he is the system. At over 90% passing accuracy, no one resets or maintains the shape of the midfield better. Those waves that lift Barca or Spain to the opposing shores have everything to do with Xavi creating those surges.