THE EURO FILES: It’s time for Xavi to go down swinging in his final El Clasico… but his broken Barcelona stars are closer to hitting each other than challenging Real Madrid

It is Xavi’s last appearance on Sunday – his last El Clásico in charge of Barcelona. And things can go one of two ways.

If you win, he spends his time leading in something that at least resembles a title race. With six games to go the difference is five points.

If you don’t win, there are no more matches that matter. His legacy as Barcelona coach will be certain: more red cards than trophies.

Real Madrid go into Sunday’s match having had a day less recovery time after defending 120 minutes against Manchester City. They still have tough away games at Real Sociedad and Villarreal, plus the distraction of the Champions League semi-finals.

But at Barcelona there was no clarion call, no badge banging – they were closer together.

Midfielder Ilkay Gundogan left defender Ronald Araujo hanging for his early send-off against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League, saying: ‘If you take a player down that early it kills the game. Give the goalkeeper a chance to save us or even concede a goal,” he said.

Araujo replied: “I prefer to keep my opinion (on Gundogan’s comments) to myself. I believe there is a (locker room) code and there are certain values ​​that need to be respected.”

The team is divided between those who believe that hard truths must be told, both publicly and privately, and those who side with Araujo and are starting to chafe at the big signings that have come in over the past two years – Robert Lewandowski, Joao Felix and among them Joao Cancelo.

And managing it all is Xavi, who is already serving his notice period. It has long been clear, in the parlance of Monty Python, that he is not the Messiah, but just a very naughty boy.

Barca fans had been hoping for the second coming of Pep Guardiola. Instead, they have a coach whose red card in midweek was his third this season. Since taking over as Barca coach, he has been booked 22 times, more than any other manager in Spain in the same time.

But despite his shortcomings, what’s striking about Barcelona’s plight is that things could get worse after him.

Don’t rule out that in a few years they will look back fondly on the Xavi era.

After all, he delivered the title last season. This year he has had to deal with the move from Camp Nou.

How different would it have been on Tuesday if there had been 96,000 people on the field instead of 50,000, an athletics track so wide away from it?

The 44-year-old has done well. Last season, his use of Gavi and Pedri as centerpieces in midfield gave Barcelona a different dimension.

This season, his transformation of former Chelsea defender Andreas Christensen into a midfielder has solidified the club.

Christensen was suspended for the midweek defeat against PSG. Gavi has been injured all season. Xavi has not been a happy coach.

He has made mistakes; it seems he chose his brother Oscar as his number 2 instead of a more experienced assistant. But there are many coaches less fit to lead Barcelona than the man who played 767 games for the club, and they may find that out in the coming seasons.

Barca B team coach Rafa Marquez, who played for the senior side between 2003 and 2010, is now favorite to take over. Barcelona could neither convince nor afford Mikel Arteta, Jurgen Klopp or Luis Enrique.

Marquez is good friends with football director Deco and will bend to the demands of the team he puts together. Deco and Xavi have never been on the same page.

A win tomorrow against Real Madrid and Xavi’s last six games in charge will mean something. Loses and the bigger question becomes whether or not he shows up for the final month of the campaign.

Dembélé is Enrique’s star boy

Ousmane Dembélé often has the expression of a man who doesn’t know what day it is. Luckily for him, as far as Luis Enrique is concerned, every day is Dembélé day.

‘Ouse’, as the PSG coach calls him, was signed from Barcelona before Enrique joined last summer and it was not unreasonable to think the two might not get on. One person likes intensity and fearless dedication, the other likes to sleep in.

At least that was the picture painted in Barcelona. By occasionally training late, Dembele could easily be portrayed as an immature failure who lives up to his ankles in takeaway pizza boxes and sleeps poorly due to an addiction to video games.

Before the first leg against PSG, a cartoon appeared in the Catalan press with the caption: ‘They play with ten because they have Dembélé.’

That summed up the low opinion many Barcelona followers have of him. In the second match, his every touch was ridiculed and counterfeit $100 bills marked Judas were circulated outside the stadium.

They don’t like the fact that he cost £130 million, got injured a lot and then left for half that amount. Despite the hostile atmosphere, Dembélé was man of the match. He didn’t let the hostility bother him and here is the core of why Enrique loves him.

One of the PSG coach’s obsessions is that his players must have the memory of a goldfish and be able to deal with setbacks immediately. Dembele has that. He doesn’t care. He is not bewildered. He hardly notices the criticism. And in a perverse way, his lack of focus on anything else means he’s completely focused on the next time he receives the ball.

In that sense, he is a model player for Enrique – as they would never call him at Barcelona.

Bayern’s messy head coaching mission

Harry Kane still has no idea who his coach will be next season. Bayern Munich made noises that they were ready to bring back Julian Nagelsmann and only accelerated the German Football Association’s process of renewing him as national coach.

Their targets are now as different as Ralf Rangnick, Unai Emery and Zinedine Zidane. The only certainty seems to be that change will come.

Even winning the club’s seventh European Cup wouldn’t cure the bad feeling between Thomas Tuchel and Bayern’s kingmakers.