Saviola returns to be second coach of Juvenil A

Javier Saviola return to Barca. The club has announced that the Argentine will be the second coach of Juvenil A de Oscar Lopez during the 2022/23 season. It is his third stage at Barça after his time with the first team between 2001 and 2004 and later in the 2006/07 season.

Saviola is already deep into homework. This week the preseason has begun with the team in La Vall d’En Bas, where they are focused with their minds set on repeating the Liga División de Honor and Champions Cup titles won last year.

Saviola lived two stages as a Barça player. In 2021 it will be 20 years since he landed. On July 4, 2001, Barça signed a very young Saviola from River Plate. He was 19 years old at the time, had just won the U-20 World Cup and football pointed him out as a great world promise. He landed in Barcelona surrounded by great media expectation and at a particularly difficult time in terms of sport.

The Barça club had finished fourth in the 2000-2001 League and Carles Rexach, at that time the coach and one of its great supporters, rubbed his hands seeing him in the squad. Barça had paid 36 million euros, the most expensive signing until then.

Of Buenos Aires, where he was an undisputed star, to Barcelona sharing a dressing room with some then very young youth squad players Carles Puyol and later Andrés Iniesta, among others. He arrived to form an attack with Patrick Kluivert and Rivaldo. The negotiations had been tough. His representative, Alfredo Cabrera Brizuela, had a tense meeting with the club’s deputy general manager, leaving the club’s offices very angry.

In the end, everything could be redirected and Saviola, who had always opted to play at the Camp Nou, took a photo with then-president Joan Gaspart and Rexach. He played at Camp Nou from 2001-2002 to 2003-2004. A year on loan to return in 2006-2007 and closed the double stage as a culé player with a total of 172 games played and 72 goals scored.

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