So… listen to this… Imagine being 14 years old and already having
a million followers on instagram… You know what that’s nothing… Imagine being 14 years old and already being
a self made millionaire, being on commercials with neymar and ronaldinho, signing deals
with Nike! Yeah, that’s what happened to Xavi Simmons…. I mean how could that kid not go viral, he
had skills like Messi and hair like Valderrama, that’s like the perfect combo… However there was a little problem… When you’re that successful that young… people tend to get a little jealous and so
very quickly the world began demanding to know whether he was gonna be the next messi
or the next freddy adu… and trust me… Everyone wanted him to fail… so the moment
Xavi slipped up just a little bit, the fans were relentless, thet labeled him a flop,
a spoiled brat, an instagram footballer…. And as the years passed, the world forgot
about Xavi Simons… but today I’m here to show you that not only was everyone wrong…
but Xavi Simons has just proved he is one of the biggest young talents in the world,
that he is destined for greatness… After all, how could he not be? His father Regillio Simons was a serious baller,
not only did he play all over the Netherlands and in Japan but he once went head to head
with Rudd Van Nistelrooy back when he was at PSV and he completely demolished him, scoring
4 goals in just that one match… So yeah, the talent was already there… but
if Regilio might not have been properly nurtured… Xavi was a little different… You see, the name is no coincidence, his father
really did name him after the great Xavi Hernandez, that’s how obsessed he was… In fact, the whole family is... his older
brother is literally named Faustino, after Faustino Asprilla and I kid you not… he
even has a cousin named Saviola Mourinho Simons, and he’s even playing for AZ Alkmaar’s
academy and has already been called up for the national team… so yeah… obviously
this is the real life Project Mbappé, this family was determined to make sure these kids
made it in football at all costs… And if you’re wondering how far they were
willing to go to make sure that happened, the answer is one thousand six hundred and
fourteen kilometers… the distance from Amsterdam to Alicante… Cause of course, being a Barcelona fanatic,
his father decided that he had to get his son into La Masia as soon as possible, so
they literally moved to spain, signing Xavi up at Club Deportivo Thader, in hopes that
the closer they were to Barcelona, the more likely they would be to scout him… And well, he wasn’t wrong, just 2 years
later, at the age of 7, ex Barcelona player and former European Champion, Guillermo Amor
spotted him and in what seemed like the blink of an eye, Xavi Simons had made it into the
greatest football academy in the world… And look, he did not waste any time, with
the help of his father, he progressed at a rate so shocking that at the age of 10, Barcelona
already saw him as their most promising young talent since Lionel Messi, bumping him up
several academy levels and even handing him the captain’s armband…. It got so crazy that that year Chelsea were
already chasing him around trying to sign him and the next year Real Madrid and Arsenal
had joined them… However, if things were crazy then, it all
became 10 times worse when 3 years later he began posting clips of him playing on instagram,
going viral over and over again… and from there on out, well he signed with Nike, joining
a roster of players that included the likes of Ronaldo and Neymar, then he began playing
for the dutch under 15 national team and above all, as his father would say “agents began
showing up all over the place, offering money like you couldn’t even imagine”.... And 2 years later, having already hit 1 million
followers on instagram… one agent finally got to him, his name was Mino Raiola… Look, I don’t wanna go too hard on the man
because after all, he did pass away last year but there’s a reason as to why Raiola quickly
became the most infamous and controversial agent in the world… He was money hungry, he never seemed to care
about preserving his client’s relations with the fans or the club and one thing above
all, he just always seemed to push young players to go too fast and more than often it almost
ruined their careers… So when Xavi signed with him… you knew there
was reason to be worried… And well… Before you knew it, Raiola was convincing
the entire family that Barcelona didn’t value them, that Xavi should’ve been playing
for their B team already, that they actually didn't care for the academy anymore… That ever since Xavi and Iniesta, no player
had ever made it to the main team, that everyone from Adama Traore to Dani Olmo and Icardi
had to flee the country in order to find a smidget of success… And suddenly, if before the Simons family
saw La Masia as the promised land… Now they weren’t so sure anymore and once
Raiola presented them with 1 million reasons a year to join PSG… Well… unsurprisingly they followed the money,
just like every single one of his other clients… Little did they know that Xavi’s generation
would lead the resurgence of La Masia, with several players from Gavi to Pedri and Ansu
Fati, not just making it to the first team but becoming some of the most important players
at the club, with the first two even winning the Golden Boy award… While in Paris, things were just as bad if
not worse than they expected them to be at Barcelona… with the club’s obsession for big blockbuster
signings repeatedly stunting the growth of their academy products and forcing them to
move away as well… just look at Nkunku or Kingsley Coman… To be fair, there was one thing I’ve always
found wholesome about this move and that was how Xavi claimed it was tough to “let go
of the dream of playing alongside Lionel Messi”... because well… little did he know uh? But yeah moving on… Just two years after arriving at PSG, having
pulled off 17 goals and 29 assists in 66 matches at the youth level, Xavi would already be
getting his professional debut and with Pochettino being known for taking good care of the academy
players, there was a lot of hope for Xavi… but then, while playing for the Dutch under-19s,
he was sent back home alongside 4 other players, after being accused of sneaking girls back
into the hotel, midway through the pandemic… and though he would repeatedly claim that
he had only gone into the room because he had heard loud music and that he never had
any intention of staying there for long… Well, let’s just say that between that and
PSG’s disappointing season which saw them lose out on the league to Lille, no one seemed
to care much when Xavi was sent back to play with the under 19s… In fact, I’d say a lot of his haters were
quite pleased to watch their claims that he was just a loose cannon slash wannabe influencer
being proven true… And to make things worse, just as Xavi was
destroying the UEFA Youth League with 4 goals and 6 assists in 7 matches, he made sure to
go completely overboard in his celebration of his goal vs Sevilla, starting a brawl and
being handed a 1 match suspension that culminated in PSG’s elimination from the competition… Once again proving everyone kind of right…
and even as he made a sort of come back to the main team, not only did he settle for
1 single assists and 0 goals across his 9 appearances, but he once again managed to
direct the spotlights towards him at the worst possible time… asking to take the decisive
penalty in a league cup shootout and completely choking it, sending PSG out of the competition
in the round of 16… and then having to swallow his pride as the coach placed the blame on
him, claiming that he had never instructed Xavi to take any penalties…. yeah rough… In fact, it got so rough, that shortly after
that Nike even ended their relationship with him…. But look, this was absurd… Even though it seemed like Xavi had been there
forever, he was still only 19, as someone once said “For every Wayne Rooney, destroying
the league at 16, there are 10 Iniesta's waiting to bloom only well into their twenties''... In fact, you only had to look back two years
to watch Nkunku go through the exact same situation, missing a penalty against Rennes,
only to then quickly become one of the most in form players in Europe… Come on, the kid had only played 300 minutes
all year… but, as I’ve been saying, it wasn’t about being logical, people legitimately
wanted to see him fail… However, it was at about this moment that
Xavi finally got an opportunity to turn the game on its head… You see, while trying not to sound insensitive…
a few months before the end of the season, Mino Raiola suddenly passed away and with
his negative influence now off the picture and Xavi’s contract with PSG about to run
out, he had a decision to make… To renew or not to renew… After all there were rumors that, before his
death, Raiola was negotiating a comeback to Barcelona and even when he was right about
to run out of a contract, the news came out that Real Madrid had approached, clearly the
name Xavi Simons was still relevant enough to attract some top clubs, maybe it was time
he tried his luck somewhere else… but you know what he did? Well, first of all, he looked past all those
top tier clubs and instead focus on a possible move to PSV and even when PSG tried to get
him to renew, proposing that he joined PSV on loan instead… He refused and instead signed for them as
a free agent with one special clause in his contract… If PSG ever wanted to take him back, all they
would have to pay for his transfer was 6 million euros… You know what this meant? It meant that this was redemption season for
Xavi Simons, if at PSG he would probably sooner or later end up being sent off to join the
famous undesirables… This way, it was time for him to go somewhere
quiet and make some noise, to show the world what he could do when he was actually given
a proper shot and well… With his father’s old nemesis, Van Nistelrooy
becoming his new mentor at PSV, just 17 minutes into his debut, in the dutch supercup, playing
against rivals Ajax… Xavi scored his first goal…. on his second
ever match he got an assist…. then 3 matches and 3 consecutive braces later, he was already
on 9 goal contributions in his first 5 matches at the club, instantly being handed the award
for the league’s player of the month… For those watching it quickly became obvious
that we had been sold lies by the media… This was no spoiled teenage celebrity, this
kid looked as focused and determined as anyone could possibly look… As PSV’s second coach would say “He’s
really hungry… He reminds me of Zlatan and Ronaldo, he’s
not afraid to say he’ll become the best, in his head it’s a matter of time until
he proves everyone wrong”... As Van Nistelrooy would simply put: “His
mindset is unprecedented”... And you know what? There was never any need to go this far to
get confirmation that the kid really is all about football… All the way back in Alicante, if you asked
people about him, the first thing they’d tell you is that they still see him all the
time that “little Xavi” still spends his summers there, that he visits his old academy
club every day, asks for some footballs, heads to the pitch and spends his days practicing
alone… Certainly this isn’t the crazed partying
playboy we were sold… And with his performances in the Eredivisie
repeatedly convincing everyone watching that he was the next great thing, there was only
one thing left to do…. to announce himself to the world and once the chance to play against
Arsenal in the Europa League came up, he did not waste one moment… Just 8 minutes into the match, he was already
forcing Ramsdale to stretch himself all the way to the top corner… midway through the
match he scored an incredible goal, making his way through a maze of arsenal defenders
and hitting a seriously cold celebration, only for it to be denied by the VAR … By
the end of it, even with young talents like Martinelly and Gakpo pacing around, Xavi was
undoubtedly the best player on the pitch… And let me tell you that match was only the
cherry on top… because… with Van Gaal watching from afar, even though Xavi was yet
to even make his friendly debut for the Netherlands, when the time to name the 23 players that
would join him for the world cup in Qatar arrived… there was no doubt in his mind… Xavi Simons had to come… And though he barely played… only getting like 7 minutes, something there
changed him, I don’t know if it was the sense of reward, if it was the feeling of
stepping onto the biggest stage in the world or if it was about watching Messi lift up
the cup… but something must have inspired him, because once he was back in the Eredivisie,
he made his performances from earlier in the season look average… putting up 10 goals and 5 assists in 15 league
matches, even scoring the late winner that would secure PSV’s Champions league spot… If some worried that the departure of Gakpo
following the world cup could have hurt his form, they were surely surprised to see that
instead… sharing the spotlight with him was only holding
him back, that Xavi was undoubtedly a star player… By the time the season ended, Xavi had been
in the league’s team of the month, in 5 out of the possible 9 months, even more impressive
considering he had been played all over the pitch, from the left wing to the right, from
midifield to a few matches as a striker… being effective in every single position and
prolific enough to beat everyone to the title of the Eredivisie’s top scorer… it doesn’t
get much more impressive than that… I mean, I guess it does… because then he
also assisted the decisive goal in the final of the Dutch Cup vs Ajax, eventually being
nominated for the European Golden Boy award… and though obviously players like Musiala
and Bellingham are the heavy favorites… aside from Musiala, who’s just in another
world… In my opinion, no one really managed to outshine
Xavi Simons… and so there was only one final question to be answered… Where should he have gone next? Staying at PSV would be the obvious answer,
you know? Get another solid season under his belt, enjoy
the stability, grow as a player all of that… On the other hand tho… you had Tottenham,
Man United and even title contenders Arsenal seemingly willing to pay up to 50 million
for his signing… and that could have been a good choice, playing under Ten Hag or Arteta
seemed like a good fit… but well, just because you were the Eredivisie’s top scorer doesn’t
mean you’re ready for the Premier League, just look at Vincent Janssen… Yeah… But instead of going with any of those options,
he instead allowed PSG to trigger his buy out clause, joining the club under one condition,
that first he had to be loaned out to Leipzig, and considering once again, how things went
with Nkunku, I’d say Xavi’s future is looking more promising than ever…
