Xavi Simons, the first Premier League debutant to score six goals in his first four league games, loves to score. But the young PSV player prefers to provide an assist. ‘I prefer to make someone else happy. That’s better for the team.’
Simons said this four years ago, when he was 15 and playing in the youth club for Barcelona, in a conversation with football truck king and YouTube star Soufiane Touzani. Normally famous footballers show their favorite tricks in Touzani’s films, but Xavi Simons said that they preferred to play nice, fast positional play than to do tricks. The video nevertheless reached four million streams.
Irresistible
A precocious boy with something irresistible attached to it. Simons has 4.2 million followers on Instagram, six times as many as his club PSV and almost twice as many as Daley Blind, the second most followed Eredivisie player. Blind already played 468 matches for Ajax and Manchester United and 92 international matches.
Certainly, the 168 centimeter measuring Xavi Simons can play football well. “He moves and plays football so easily, so naturally, his technique is perfect. He does such smart things. You don’t often see that in boys of that age,” says Hedwiges Maduro, who was an assistant coach at the Orange squad when Simons played in it.
The fact that Simons came over on a free transfer from Paris Saint-Germain last summer and signed with PSV until 2027 was seen as an outright stunt. The midfielder started as a bench seat, but for the time being manifests himself as a defining player. At ESPN, he was voted the best player of the month for August, in the ADplayer standings he sovereignly leads.
Maduro, also praised as a teenager, thinks that’s clever. “The expectations around him have always been extreme. That’s actually not fair, he’s only just getting started.’
The 19-year-old Simons only played twenty matches at the highest level. Its popularity is due to a combination of circumstances. The Dutch-born footballer, son of former professional Regillio Simons (striker at NAC, Fortuna and Willem II, among others), moved with his parents to the Spanish village of Rojales near Alicante at the age of three, because the family was already there in the summer. gladly came.
Scouted by Barcelona
He was scouted by FC Barcelona when he was six, where he played until he was sixteen. That was precisely a period in which the youth academy bore less fruit than in the past. In order to dampen the criticism, attention was drawn to a new generation, with Simons as one of the standard bearers.
Already at the age of twelve, Simons could be seen in a commercial with the then Barcelona star Neymar. At his next club, Paris Saint-Germain, he made his debut as a professional between stars such as Neymar, Messi and Mbappe, who treated him like their favorite cousin. “I can always count on them.”
Simons talked about it in a sparse interview. You can’t make him more unhappy than talking about himself, the media department of PSV now knows. He doesn’t spend much time on the internet either, says Simons himself. He just wants to play football.
Nevertheless, since meeting Touzani for several years, the Instagram account @xavisimons has been a slick mix of beautifully featured action photos and semi-spontaneous holiday or friend shots, promotional images for shoes from sponsor Nike, the launch of its own logo (XS), philosophical texts (‘be so hungry you will find goals anywhere’) and professional animations.
Many professional football players have their social media taken care of by an external agency, with the aim of getting more followers and (therefore) more advertisers. But the fact that a youth player had his own ‘brand’ so skillfully developed is a novelty. Simons won the Ballon d’or for best youth player four times in a row, but his appearance helped. He trotted around in bright blond curls. The yellow-red captain’s armband he wore in the youth teams at Barcelona matched it perfectly.
‘There were hardly any blond boys,’ says Bobby Adekanye, who also played in the youth of Barcelona.
Named after Xavi Hernandez
And then that first name: Xavi, after the current Barcelona coach Xavi Hernandez, who as a football player was known as the king of tikitaka football. The Spanish side and Barcelona never marched better than with Xavi in midfield. Like Xavi Hernandez, Xavi Simons often wore number 6, sometimes number 14.
But Simons is not a dominant personality. ‘Xavi was the calmest in their house’, says Adekanye, who often visited the Simons family and is still in contact with them. ‘I was alone in Barcelona, I am four years older than Xavi. But he caught me. He is very sweet, but knew from an early age that he would reach the highest level, that was very much in him. He also showed that appearance on the field. He received a lot of attention and confidence from the club, became captain at a young age. Because he was so eager, always wanted to get better, but also thought of others.’
Xavi Simons is already inimitable as an 11-year-old. He dribbles, shoots and passes. He attacks and defends, he screams and soothes. The blond hairdo swirls over the fields of youth complex La Masia. Rizo d’OroGolden Curl, is his nickname.
Simons and Adekanye made headlines at a very young age because Barcelona broke the rules by attracting underage players from abroad. As a result, Adekanye was banned from playing football for a year.
Among other de Volkskrant went to Barcelona and also spoke to Simons’ father Regillio. He preferred to keep his son under the radar, he said. But that did not work out. In Football International At the age of fourteen, he was already portrayed as the great hope of Dutch football. the NOS included him in a list of 20 top talents, Simons was by far the youngest.
“Being in the media at a young age is just beautiful,” says Adekanye. ‘You don’t think about the pressure that entails. But you will notice later on: everywhere you go, there are high expectations.’
Transfer to Paris Saint-Germain
The surprise was great when Simons suddenly announced at the age of sixteen that he was going from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain. The midfielder never went deep into that switch. His agent Mino Raiola, recently deceased, was a tough negotiator and well known at the Paris club.
Barcelona fans thought Simons was a traitor, a moneylender. Instead of the usual hearts, his loving farewell message to Barcelona featured emoticons of rats, snakes and flying banknotes. The then head of Barcelona training Patrick Kluivert seemed to sneeze at Simons in marca: the young player would have made a choice purely for the money. But Kluivert also said to leave the door ajar for a return.
There were rumors of a return, although Simons was one of the few young players to get playing time at PSG. PSG were also eager to extend his contract. But Simons came into contact with PSV, which often brought great Dutch talents, who were trained at a foreign top club, to the Netherlands. Adekanye also spent a season there. “They flew all the way to Barcelona for me,” Adekanye says. “It’s very warm there, I’m not surprised that Xavi likes it so much.”
Xavi Simons speaks five languages: Spanish, Catalan, Dutch, French and English. At PSV you see him having serious conversations with coach Ruud van Nistelrooij (‘because of him I went to PSV’) and Luuk de Jong (‘I can learn a lot from him’), but also just before the game Joey Veerman gates , laugh with the Ivorian Ibrahim Sangaré and make a heart with the very young Brazilian Savio.
Van Nistelrooij is short of praise for Simons, although he did not place him in the matches against Rangers in which PSV missed qualification for the Champions League. Record international Wesley Sneijder stated at RTL7 that the substitute Simons was the only one who deserved a heavy pass.
nice boy
Simons is not quick to complain. Maduro remembers that he first joined the Orange under 18. “He already had a decent reputation with Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain, but he didn’t feel too big for the rest. On the contrary, a nice boy who worked very hard and completely absorbed in the group. Sometimes you see that differently. We had just won 3-0 against France. So we stuck with the same team. He cheered just as loudly on the couch. He had to show it at training. Well he did, the sparks flew. The level went up. He is a real enthusiast.’
His training at Barcelona offers advantages, sees Hedwiges Maduro, who played in Spain for six years. “At Spanish clubs it’s about occupying the field, about constantly puzzling who should be where at what time. Once it’s running, it’s unstoppable, it goes so inimitably fast. At one point I saw him call out Bakayoko against Emmen. Simons went to the outside, freeing Bakayoko, who played from the side, in the middle. Then you are really very far. You rarely see young players doing something like that.’
What has been striking about his Instagram lately is that there is no more logo, no posed photos, only action photos and hugs with family. His hairstyle is also less noticeable, it is darker and secured in pigtails. Xavi Simons wants to let his feet speak more than ever.