Bartomeu and Abidal avoid talking about Xavi at Setien's press conference

Bartomeu and Abidal avoid talking about Xavi at Setien's press conference

 Bartomeu y Abidal se fueron por las ramas cuando les preguntaron por Xavi Hernández / | sport.es

Despite being the ideal choice for both the president and director of football, neither wanted to spend time talking about the club legend

Following the defeat to Atletico Madrid in the Spanish Super Cup, FC Barcelona decided to offer the manager job to Xavi Hernandez. A meeting took place between the Barça legend, Eric Abidal and Ramon Planes.

However, Xavi turned the role down and this forced the club to explore other options. Earlier this morning Quique Setien was presented as the new head coach of Barça.

Curiously neither the club president, Josep Bartomeu, nor the director of football, Eric Abidal, mentioned Xavi by name in the presentation. Not even when they were directly asked about the meeting with the former player.

All about the new coach

“The director of football was the one searching for the coach and there's no one better than him to talk about that," Bartomeu replied when asked about Xavi.

Abidal, who refused to talk about his trip to Doha in order to meet Xavi, avoided the question completely.  "A great deal of work went into the search for the right coach and when the moment came to make a decision, the board had the answers."

Happy with Setien

"Every coach has his own methods but, when it came to making a decision, we had to think about the club and the project," continued Abidal.

"We like his methods, his philosophy and we know a lot of things could change but we're confident in the whole squad."

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