The press conference has barely begun when Xavi Hernández reaches for a metaphor that stops the room. "My feeling today," the 46-year-old tells journalists in Amsterdam, "is that I'm going to the university of football." It is a line that lands because it is earned. From the moment a teenage Xavi was enrolled at La Masia — the Barcelona academy built on the principles of Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff — his entire footballing education has been written in Dutch ink.

That education ran through Louis van Gaal, who handed Xavi his first-team debut at Barcelona, and Frank Rijkaard, under whom he matured into a world-class midfielder. Then came Pep Guardiola, himself deeply shaped by Cruyff, and the most dominant club side of the modern era. The personal thread runs even deeper: in 2014, Xavi and Cruyff opened a multifunctional street-football space — a Cruyff court — together in Xavi's home town of Terrassa. "In the last period of his life I had some meetings with Johan," Xavi said quietly.

"Even when he was sick, he was always positive. Always smiling. This is what I want to show the players here." The tactical message is just as sharp.

When asked whether he would use five defenders, as Van Gaal and Ronald Koeman did at times, Xavi was blunt. "That is not my idea," he said.