Xavi Hernández

📍Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain

“Xavier Hernández Creus, known as Xavi, was born in January 1980 in Terrassa, an industrial city of old textile mills about twenty kilometres north-west of Barcelona, in Catalonia. His father, Joaquim, had been a footballer with Sabadell, and his mother, Maria Mercè, looked after Xavi and his brothers and sister. Football was the family's passion, and his older brother, Óscar, also became a professional footballer and coach. Xavi grew up playing in the streets and on the pitches of Terrassa, and joined Jàbac, a local youth club, before moving to Terrassa FC's youth teams. He was small, but his touch, vision and passing were remarkable, and he learned to keep the ball under pressure. He also watched a lot of English football on television as a boy, admiring midfielders such as John Barnes, Paul Gascoigne and Matt Le Tissier. At eleven he was spotted by Barcelona and joined the club's famous La Masia academy, where the coaching emphasised keeping possession and passing, ideas that suited him perfectly. He made his first-team debut in 1998 and played seventeen seasons for Barcelona, winning eight league titles and four Champions Leagues, and becoming the heartbeat of the team's tiki-taka style. With Spain he won the European Championship in 2008 and 2012 and the World Cup in 2010. He later returned to Barcelona as head coach. Terrassa is proud of him, and he has remained close to his family and his roots in the city.”

Sources: vavel.com Wikipedia: Xavi (footballer,_born_1980)