Ernesto Valverde a dead man walking at Barcelona as Xavi looms

Blaugrana legend Xavi is staying with Al-Sadd, but it is now a case of when rather than if Valverde leaves Barca

Ernesto Valverde's time appears to be up at Barcelona (AP)

Real Madrid won the Spanish Supercopa by beating Atletico Madrid on penalties after a goalless 120 minutes in Jeddah last night - but the biggest loser of the reshaped competition was Barcelona’s now dead man walking coach Ernesto Valverde.

RFEF president Luis Rubiales’ decision to expand the Supercopa to four teams and move it from August to January, and Spain to Saudi Arabia, brought plenty of debate about the Gulf state ‘sportswashing’ its reputation, and the fairness of neither last season’s La Liga winners Barca or Copa del Rey holders Valencia making the decider.

But direct flights from Jeddah to Doha did at least make it much easier for Barca’s chief executive Oscar Grau and sporting director Eric Abidal to pop over to visit Xavi Hernandez and ask him to return immediately to the Camp Nou to replace Valverde as coach following Thursday’s second semi-final collapse against Atletico.

Blaugrana legend Xavi, 39, has decided to remain as Al-Sadd coach for now - or at least as long as their Qatari Cup final against Rui Faria’s Al Duhail in Doha next Friday.

Still, it is surely a case of when rather than if Valverde leaves Barca - despite winning the La Liga title in his only two completed seasons in charge. The talk around the Camp Nou on Sunday evening was that the decent 55-year-old might even resign immediately and leave Barca’s much less dignified board stuck in an even bigger mess.

The manner of the defeat to Atletico was familiar - more Lionel Messi magic put Barca in control of the game, but physical, tactical and mental frailties elsewhere in the team cost them in the end.

That brought an angry reaction from blaugrana fans and pundits, and a decision among the club hierarchy to deflect attention from their own culpability. On Friday club sources were openly admitting that Grau and Abidal were visiting Xavi to offer him the opportunity of being Barca’s first team coach sooner rather than later.

Further humiliation for Valverde was widespread if unsubstantiated reports in Spain that Messi, Sergio Busquets and Gerard Pique had all called their former teammate to persuade him to return right away, as the dressing-room had lost faith in their current boss.

The panic was not really understandable - given the Supercopa is not such an important competition. And Barca are currently top of the La Liga table at the half-way point, with a relatively straightforward Champions League last-16 draw against Napoli, who really are in crisis. They also still have Messi - by far the best player in the world and in super form at the moment.

A more calmer and professional board might have decided to publicly ride out the storm and back their coach for the moment - whether or not they were secretly talking to Xavi or other candidates behind the media’s back. But everyone knew that Grau and Abidal remained in Doha over the weekend, with it unclear whether Valverde was going to be take training in Barcelona on Monday morning.

Xavi then let it be known that he would rather wait before becoming Barca coach at a different point in the future. “Coaching Barça is my dream, I cannot hide that,” he told a press conference on Saturday. “Everyone knows. I want to have respect for Valverde. I cannot say too much. Just that I met with Abidal, my friend ... I am focused on my team, Al Sadd.”

Nobody doubts now that Xavi, who played 767 games for Barca and won 25 trophies between 1998 and 2015, will sit on the Camp Nou bench some day. Whether that is next week, next summer, or under the regime of Barca’s next board remains to be seen.

A contributing factor over the timing is that Xavi and fellow blaugrana prophet Carles Puyol are in regular contact with Victor Font - the leading opposition candidate for the next Barca presidential elections due in 2021 at the latest.

With no other obvious choice to take over mid-season as coach, Barca B’s Francisco García Pimienta could in theory step-up short term. Barca’s directors also contacted Ronald Koeman over the weekend, but the 1992 Champions League final match-winner is contracted to the Netherlands national team until next summer’s European Championships.

Speculation on Sunday evening that Barca president Bartomeu had personally decided to hire Mauricio Pochettino seemed fanciful. Pochettino is from Argentina's Rosario like Messi, but the former Espanyol player and coach has previously ruled out ever working at the Camp Nou.

Less commented upon over the last few days has been whether or not Valverde was personally to blame for Thursday’s collapse. Captain Messi blamed his teammates' “childish mistakes” for allowing Atletico back into the game, while Antoine Griezmann was closer to the crux of the problem when he said Atletico’s players “had more legs at the end.”

Barca’s key figures - Messi, Luis Suarez, Busquets and Pique - are all now the wrong side of 30. So it is no surprise if the team fades out of games. As if to underline the foolishness of relying on players at this stage of their careers, Suarez is now set for a knee operation which rules him out until April at least. Any coach taking over from Valverde will find the situation challenging, especially a rookie like Xavi with less than a full season coaching in Qatar as his entire experience.

Barca fell to Atletico on Thursday evening (REUTERS)

All the drama at Barca overshadowed Sunday’s final in which Madrid and Atletico cancelled each other out for long periods of what was a dour enough midfield battle. Los Blancos young midfielder Fede Valverde was the central figure - missing the clearest chance of normal time, then taking down Alvaro Morata with a professional foul when the Atletico forward was straight through with 120 minutes almost up.

The shoot-out saw Courtois save from former Atletico teammate Thomas Partey, allowing Madrid skipper Sergio Ramos to take the glory again by coolly converting the decisive spot-kick to send the majority of fans at the almost-full King Abdullah Sports City Stadium home happy.

€30 million shared out between the competing clubs and other areas of Spanish football also in the end quietened concern over the wider social and cultural issues of holding the tournament in Saudi Arabia. Despite further loud complaints last week from Amnesty International about widespread human rights abuses in the Gulf kingdom, and some excellent reporting from Patrica Cazon of AS in particular on the restrictions she faced as a woman travelling to do her job covering the game.

“Some criticism is constructive, others are just always negative,” Rubiales said from the stadium on Sunday evening. “But we just move on, smile, and be happy with what we have achieved. This country is only starting to organise these type of events. There are details to improve, but that is also the case in Spain. Generally it has all gone very well. We've been able to work very well, to eat well, to travel all over the country, with total freedom.”

The expanded format makes it quite possible that all four clubs will be back in Jeddah again in January 2021 for the next version of the Supercopa. Whether Valverde is still Barca coach by next Sunday’s La Liga game at home to Granada is much less clear.