Xavi Simons, the famous ‘runaway’ La Masia kid as he’s popularly known. He is a product of the Barcelona academy before signing for Paris Saint-Germain in 2019, at age 16 where he’d later on make his professional debut with the French team 2 years later. Born in Amsterdam to a former footballer, it’s safe to say the blood that flows in the family has a lot of football in it as his older brother; Faustino Simons also plays/played the sport.

Lots of questions have been asked overtime about his youth football career but the most asked one is ‘why did Barcelona let him go’ considering how fast he ranked up in the system and how he was rated as one of the absolute best talents in world football. With Barcelona having a pedigree of promoting kids with talents of his calibre every now and then, one would think they’d do everything to hold him down but at the end of the day, it’s football and it’s a business. It is said that an agent war was the sole reason he failed to make his professional debut at the Spanish club as they failed to agree on a contract.

From La Masia, to PSG, to PSV and to RB Leipzig in Germany, Xavi Simons has had an interesting and unpredictable career so far that’s taken an upward trajectory both as a player and as a human. 

Player Profile

Xavi Simons is one i like to describe as a half-winger-half-10 archetype (although he’s got the range to play as an advanced 8, 9 or even RW as he did on his loan at PSV but his best positions on the pitch lies between the lines or in the half-spaces.

Photo: Opta Analyst

He has the explosiveness, 1v1 ability to dribble past his man & powerfully drive up the pitch as well as creative passing to play on the wings & he’s equally brilliant between the lines both at finding spaces to recieve with his back to goal & half-turn play to recieve passes and playing top final passes to put his teammate on goal. This makes him a brilliant small space player (also due to his low center of gravity & ball manipulation) to play as a number 10.

Few players can boast of top repeated final passes like Simons does and it’s a big part of why his loan at leipzig has been a successful one because they’re a transition-based team & such skillset is valuable to make decisions. He takes up the role of a chief creator & a goal-scorer on the pitch due to his intelligence to also get in goalscoring areas & his finishing ability in the box. His last goal in the Bundesliga even shows this.

Reference: Xavi Simons last goal for RB Leipzig in the Bundesliga vs Augsburg

Goal-scoring instincts, sharp movements, vision & passing range to match, repeated actions on the pitch, great ball-striking. All rolled in one, sounds like a player made in the lab, right? These are just fragments of Xavi Simons skillset. Off-the-ball he’s an ‘annoying’ player to come up against on the pitch, he’s different from the typical number 10s who perform little defensive actions and stay up the pitch during play.

He’s a relentless presser and he has a top dueling power to content in duels. This is why he can function on the pitch as a deeper player because he has both on-the ball & off-the-ball qualities to match. Take his last full season at RB Leipzig for example.

Photo: FotMob

He won the most possession of all players p90 and the frequency rate was only topped by the defensive midfielders, which goes to show how hard he works off the ball. To put Xavi’s hard-work without the ball into context, he was ranked 9th in the Bundesliga for intensive runs with 2,326 accumulated across 32 starts in the 2023/24 season, accruing some 664 challenges attempted in total, which was more than any other Leipzig player in the Bundesliga. Of those 664, he won a hugely impressive 52.87% of his challenges.

Back to describing his deep midfield play as a number 8. He can escape any type of opposition pressure during first phase buildup & is a brilliant ball-carrier who can equally play splitting passes. Although there are areas in his deep midfield play which aren’t outstanding which can make some coaches not use him in that role. Example is his temperament in possession, he’s not control-inclined & can often rush the pace of the game. He doesn’t have that long-range passing game as well and is a carry-first player. 

He attempts lots of challenges, he works hard off-ball. What if you find out he equally wins them, too? Xavi Simons is a foul-winning magnet across the pitch and it also boils down to some qualities described above; low center of gravity, ball manipulation in tight spaces, 1v1 ability & exploding power in the pockets. Across countries and leagues, he repeats the same.

Photo: Opta Analyst

In the 2023/24 season, only Eintracht Frankfurt’s Omar Marmoush with 75 was fouled more than Xavi Simons (73). Which makes him a threat & a reliable source of generating set-piece opportunities for his team both to relieve pressure or create goal-scoring opportunities. This is a team who has the best dead-ball player in the league in David Raum and a monster aerial threat in Benjamin Šeško. What more can they ask for? 

A noteworthy thing about the Dutchman is also his mental capacity & how he views himself to take on responsibilities. Always going against the odds and banking on himself, whether it’s PSV or at RB Leipzig (both are loan spells). Filling in big shoes at RB Leipzig who has just experienced players Christopher Nkunku and Dominik Szoboszlai lit up the team and league at large & their departure leaving a big creative and attacking gap to be filled.

A 20-year-old Simons from a whole new country and league filled in just nicely & took up both roles with ease and slots right in Marco Rose’s 4-2-2-2 as a wide midfielder or a number 10, often deputising the creative role with Dani Olmo.

Xavi Simons’ assist to Lois Openda vs BVB

If a single action could define a player, the image above would be it. He receives the ball in a wider area on the left in transition and then spots a run-in-behind by Openda on the other wing and then shifts his body laterally-close to ground to create an angle to curve the pass with the outside of his boot which swerved past two Borussia Dortmund defenders to Openda. Vision, conviction, range of action & intelligence overload, he is a player who comes to life in the biggest of occasions.

Xavi Simons is a certified superstar in the making. His profile is unique & valued highly in today’s market. Superb dribbling power & associative play to string in sequence of plays with his teammates, brilliant ball mastery and manipulation in tight spaces, great passer of the ball with the vision to see the game ahead of others, top off-ball runs to get in dangerous areas in the box with the composure & ball-striking in his finishes.

He is fantastic dueler off-ball with an engine to match. This combination of skillet has been perceived differently by several coaches and has resulted in him being versatile and usable across many positions on the pitch. 

Without a doubt, his long term position and best career moments will come in a central role on the pitch, most likely as a number 10. Safe to say, he has found a bit of stability at RB Leipzig and had confessed his love for them which was also evident in the last transfer window as European giant Bayern Munich were keen on landing him and got into a thug of war with RB Leipzig. 

• Why did you pick Leipzig over Bayern?

Xavi Simons: “There have been a lot of rumours, a lot of things. I was on holiday with my family, I was not quite a lot on my phone. My brother was the one on the phone. What I want to say is that I’m thankful to everyone who took the… pic.twitter.com/yWdVQbpOZ7

— Bayern & Germany (@iMiaSanMia) August 6, 2024

Already bagged numerous individual awards at his clubs with the recent ones being two rookie of the month awards during last season at RB Leipzig. Then he went on to produce a stellar performance at the Euros under Ronald Koeman. Xavi Simons is destined for the top. His next big decision is the next club he goes to (although it isn’t 100% on him).

PSG are in a position to refuse all offers for him and use him as the Mbappe replacement in the squad as a superstar potential and also quality wise, RB Leipzig will also be lurking around to max bid on him at a chance to have him permanently. Bayern? Real Madrid? who knows. He’ll definitely be sought for by a lot of top teams  in the next transfer window. 

By: Sultan Babajide

Featured Image: @Juanffrann / Soccrates Images