Carlos Rexach

Carles Charly Rexach Cerdà (Barcelona, January 13, 1947) is a Spanish former soccer player and soccer coach. He is one of the most charismatic and recognized figures of F.C. Barcelona, a club that he joined as a boy of only 12 years. He holds the record of having maintained a contractual relationship with the Catalan club for 44 years: 5 as a player in the youth teams, 17 as a first-team player and 22 as a member of the coaching staff. He was Johan Cruyff's assistant coach and assistant during the eight years (between 1988 and 1996) in which the Dutchman led the team. Later he became coach of the first team between 2001 and 2002. In 1997 he was, for one season, coach of the Yokohama Flugels, a team from the Japanese first division.

Trajectory as a player

F. C. Barcelona

He made his debut in the first team of F. C. Barcelona under the guidance of Barça coach Salvador Artigas. It was on April 25, 1965, at the age of 18, and on the occasion of a Copa del Rey match at El Sardinero, Santander, against Real Racing Club. Barcelona won by a resounding 0-4, and Carles Rexach scored the team's fourth goal, and the first of his professional career.

Between 1965 and 1966, Rexach played a few games with the first team, although he participated more in the matches of CF Condal, the name that was then received by the F. C. Barcelona subsidiary.

He made his debut in the Spanish soccer league on September 10, 1967, at the age of 20, on the first day of the 1967-68 season. The game took place in Zaragoza, and Real Zaragoza defeated Barcelona 3-2. Carles Rexach scored the first goal of the game, ten minutes into the game.

Rexach quickly earned the starting position from day one. That 1967-68 season he played 22 of the 30 games, all of them complete, he scored a total of six goals, and became one of the revelations of the championship.

He played right winger, and had excellent class. Quick, an excellent crosser, and a good shooter (especially from free kicks and penalties), he was considered one of the best wingers in Europe of his time. His figure, however, always created a division of opinion in the culé fans. Although he was valued for his class, and protected for being a Catalan boy from the Barcelona youth academy, he was always criticized for his irregularity and his lack of combativeness.

During his 16 seasons in the first team he always started, except in the last season when, due to his age, he only appeared in eight league games. All this allowed him to have gone down in history as the seventh player who has played the most official matches for FC Barcelona, with a total of 449.

He won the Pichichi Trophy as the top scorer in the League in the 1970/71 season, scoring 17 goals in 29 games. He was his best scorer as a player, he has gone down in history as the ninth top scorer in the history of FC Barcelona, with 122 goals in official matches.

Despite his longevity as a Barça player, he only managed one league title: the 1973/74 season, along with Johan Cruyff, Hugo Sotil and Asensi.

Later, he actively participated in the triumph of F. C. Barcelona in the 1979 European Cup Winners' Cup. He was one of the great protagonists of the final played in Basel (Switzerland), and in which Barcelona defeated the German team of Fortuna in extra time Duesseldorf 4-3. First, Rexach missed a penalty. Later he made up for it by scoring a goal.

The title they won the most times was the Copa del Rey, which they won four times. In the 1978 Cup final, in which Barcelona defeated U.D. Las Palmas 3-1, Rexach scored two goals and was considered the best player of the match.

Carles Rexach retired from FC Barcelona, and as an active player, in 1981, at the age of 34. F. C. Barcelona organized a tribute match for him in style, on September 1, 1981 against the current world champion Argentine team at the time, who came to Barcelona and filled the Camp Nou, with all its stars, including a young man named Diego Armando Maradona. F. C. Barcelona won 1-0, with a goal from the Danish Allan Simonsen who, precisely, came to Barcelona to occupy the winger position that Rexach vacated.

After his retirement, Rexach remained linked to the club, joining the coaching staff as coach of the youth team. Thus he began a career as a coach that, curiously, would bring him more titles than that of a player.

Spanish team

Carles Rexach made his debut with the Spanish National Team on April 23, 1969, in the Spain-Switzerland match (1-0) that was played in Valencia. He was a regular in the squad for 10 years, although he only played 15 games, in which he scored two goals. With the national team he participated in the World Cup in Argentina, in 1978, where he played his last international match: the one that Spain lost to Austria 1-2, in Buenos Aires, on June 3, 1978.

Clubs as a player

Club	Country	Year	Parties	Goles
F. C. Barcelona	Spain	1965-1981	449	122

Honours of Prizes

National tournaments

Title	Club	Country	Year
Copa del Generalísimo	Barcelona	Spain	1967-68
Copa del Generalísimo			1970-71
First Division of Spain			1973-74
Copa del Rey			1977-78
Copa del Rey			1980-81

International tournaments

Title	Club	Headquarters	Year
Fair Cup	Barcelona	Zaragoza	1965-66
Coup Europe		Basel	1978-79

Trajectory as a coach

From his retirement as a player in 1981 until 1987, Rexach coached youth teams from the Barcelona youth academy.

In 1984 he founded a prestigious soccer school for young people in Barcelona, called Escuela TARR, which receives its name from the initials of its four founding members: former FC Barcelona players Torres, Asensi, Rexach and Rifé.

It was in 1987 when he joined the technical staff of the first team, as assistant coach of Luis Aragonés. From then until 2003 he has remained for 16 years (as many as he was a player) as first team coach, although almost always as second coach, not first. Even so, during these 16 years he had to take the reins of the team as first coach for various reasons.

The first time he was head coach was in 1988, when head coach Luis Aragonés decided to step down. Rexach led the first team in two friendlies against Barcelona de Guayaquil and Peñarol on a tour of South America. For the 1988-89 season, Johan Cruyff took charge of the first team as the new manager.

Cruyff wanted Rexach, his old teammate during his time as a Barcelona player, to be his second coach. Together they formed the couple that, between 1988 and 1996, would lead the team to achieve the greatest football successes in the entity's history, the so-called Dream Team.

During their eight years together, Rexach took charge of the first team on more than one occasion, most notably in the 1990-1991 season. At the end of February 1991, Cruyff had a serious heart attack that kept him hospitalized for several days, and forced him to rest for a while. Rexach took charge of the team as acting second manager, helping them win the League, the first of four in a row they would win. In total, Rexach was the team's first coach in six games, of which they won four, drew one and lost one. The team, in those six games, scored thirteen goals and conceded only three.

The second big time he took charge of the team as head coach was at the end of the 1995-96 season. The club's board of directors, chaired by José Luis Núñez, fired Johan Cruyff, and offered Rexach to take charge of the team for the last two days of the League. Rexach accepted the position, in a controversial decision that cost him his friendship with Cruyff.

The following season, 1996-97, the team was led by Englishman Bobby Robson, who brought in Portuguese José Mourinho as second coach. Rexach continued to form part of the first team's technical squad, albeit playing the role of scout for rival teams and interesting players to sign.

A short time later, he separated his career from F. C. Barcelona for the first time in his life, by accepting an offer to coach the Yokohama Flugels, a team from the first division of Japan. The Japanese adventure lasted a year and, at the end of the season 1998-99, Rexach returned to join the technical staff of F. C. Barcelona, directed at that time by the Dutchman Louis van Gaal.

In the 2000 F. C. Barcelona presidential elections, Joan Gaspart, who ultimately won the elections, included him in his electoral team as future technical director and adviser to the president. However, on April 23, 2001 Gaspart dismissed the first coach, Llorenç Serra Ferrer, due to the poor results, and offered Rexach the opportunity to take the reins of the team for the remaining two months of the season, with the sole objective (lost the League) to qualify to the team for the Champions League the following season. Rexach accepted and led the team in seven League games, of which the team won three, drew three and lost one, finishing in fourth position, and managing to qualify, at the last minute of the last day, for the Champions League the following year, thanks to a spectacular Chilean goal scored by Rivaldo, in a match against Valencia CF.

The European qualification allowed the president Joan Gaspart to offer him the opportunity he had always dreamed of: the renewal of the contract and the possibility of being the first coach of Barcelona in the following season, 2001-02. For the first time, he would not be a head coach by circumstance, but would be one by right, with all the power, and time to plan the season to his liking, with the squad he chose.

In the 2001-02 season, Rexach led the team during the 38 league games, but FC Barcelona could only match the fourth position of the previous season. They won a total of 18 games, drawing 10 and losing 10. They scored 65 goals for and conceded 37 against. The team also did not win any of the other competitions in which it participated (neither the Copa del Rey nor the Champions League). Rexach was harshly criticized by the press for the team's play, and for the poor performance of the signings he had made, such as the French Christanval, the Brazilians Rochemback and Geovanni or the Swedish Andersson.

At the end of the season, Barcelona signed the Dutchman Louis Van Gaal again to become the first team coach, in addition to giving him full power in the club's sports area, while Rexach went on to direct the technical secretariat. The crisis of results from the previous season continued during the 2002-03 campaign, leading the club to a serious crisis that led to the resignation of Gaspart and the early calling of elections for the presidency, held in June 2003 with Joan's victory. Laporta, who promoted a thorough renewal in all levels of the club, which led him to dispense with the services of Charly Rexach, ending an almost uninterrupted 44-year contractual relationship with F.C. Barcelona.

In recent years he has worked as a sports analyst in different media. In 2010 he announced his willingness to stand for the elections for the presidency of F.C. Barcelona that year. Although he ultimately did not attend the elections, the new president, Sandro Rosell, appointed him the club's sports adviser along with Migueli and Josep Maria Fusté.

Clubs as a coach

Club	Country	Year	P	PG	PE	P	% v.
F. C. Barcelona "B" (assistant)	SpainSpain	1983-1984
F. C. Barcelona (chanter)		1984-1987
F. C. Barcelona (second coach)		1987-1996
F. C. Barcelona (interest trainer)		1991	8	5	2	1	62.5
		1996	2	1	1	0	50
Yokohama Flugels	JapanJapan	1997-1998
F. C. Barcelona (interest trainer)	SpainSpain	2001	7	3	3	1	42.86
F. C. Barcelona		2001-2002	56	28	14	14	50