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Xavi Hernandez

BARCELONA. — Barcelona’s most decorated player of all time, Xavi Hernandez, announced yesterday he will bring to an end a stellar 17-year playing career with the Catalan soccer giants at the end of the season.

The 35-year-old will follow in former international teammate Raul’s footsteps by joining Qatari side Al Sadd in a major coup for the domestic football in a country set to host the 2022 World Cup.

Yet, before bidding farewell to his homeland for the Middle East, Xavi has two more titles to add to his collection of 23 trophies with the Copa del Rey and Champions League finals to come.

The former Spain international, who signed up with Barca’s academy in 1991 aged 11 and has won 23 trophies with the first team, formally announced his departure at a Press conference after the news had leaked out earlier this week.

Al Sadd simultaneously confirmed on their Twitter feed that an agreement had been sealed on a two-year contract with an option for a further year.

“It’s a definitive decision, it’s not an easy one, it’s the right moment to go,” an emotional Xavi, Barcelona’s club captain and appearance record holder after 764 matches, told reporters.

“I still feel useful here but a change of scene is necessary, my head tells me so but not my heart,” he said, adding that his aim was to return to Barcelona after completing his coaching qualifications.

“I am a product of the Barca family. I think my contribution has been very good, I have done what they taught me.”

Xavi came to define Barca’s possession-based playing style and has had a crucial role in the success of the Catalan club and the Spain national team over the past decade. He is set to receive an emotional send-off in Barcelona’s final La Liga game of the campaign at home to Deportivo La Coruna tomorrow, when he will hoist aloft the La Liga trophy after the match. Last weekend Barca wrapped up the title, Xavi’s eighth, and he can win two more trophies in the King’s Cup final against Athletic Bilbao on May 30 and the Champions League showpiece versus Juventus a week later.

Xavi said Barca had offered to extend his current contract by two years to 2018 but he had decided to move on as he no longer commands an automatic place in the first team.

He almost left at the end of last season after Barcelona failed to win a major trophy for the first time in six years but new coach Luis Enrique, a former team mate, persuaded him to stay.

“When you talk about the gala 11 my name is no longer there,” he said. “It’s not easy to accept but the team has always come first.”

A fitting tribute will be paid to the man who has worn the Barca shirt more than any other tomorrow as the Blaugrana celebrate their La Liga title at home to Deportivo la Coruna.

However, it is even more apt that the midfielder that has proved so decisive on the biggest stage for club and country over the past two decades will say farewell on the biggest stage.

The Copa del Rey final against Athletic Bilbao will be his final game at the Camp Nou on May 30 before he hopes to claim a fourth Champions League title against Juventus in Berlin a week later.

Win both and Barca will become the first club to win a treble of league, Cup and Champions League for the second time. It will also be a second for Xavi, having been at the heart of Pep Guardiola’s treble-winning side in 2008-09. It could have been very different.

Benched for the title decider against Atletico Madrid last season as Barca missed out on a major trophy for the first time in six years and the final two matches of Spain’s disastrous World Cup defence in Brazil, he seemed set for a move to Qatar 12 months ago.

“Last summer it would have been too early. I was downhearted with two big disappointments at the World Cup and here at Barca,” he said.

“Now we are capable and have the opportunity to make history. I am very happy to have stayed.”

Convinced to stay on for a final year by former teammate Luis Enrique, his illustrious Barca career has had the final curtain it deserved as demonstrated by his tears at clinching an eighth Liga title when the Catalans exacted revenge on Atletico last weekend. — AFP.