Today at Al Sadd stadium midfield playmaker Xavi Hernandez was awarded the QSL’s September Player of the Month Award.

It's no great surprise that the ex-Barca man was the first player to pick up the accolade this season. In the month of September the “puppet master” scored once and assisted three times.

Physical stats
At the ripe old age of 35 the diminutive Spaniard is a master at letting the ball do the work. The Prozone radar graph clearly shows he is economical when it comes to his overall physical exertion.  Despite not running much without the ball and having a relatively low total distance covered, he still manages to have a big impact on his team and therefore the game.
 
Technical analysis
Xavi plays as a central midfielder for Al Sadd but there are very few like him in the modern game, he can receive the ball in the most crowded areas of the pitch, yet still he somehow finds a way to move the ball forward. Xavi has boosted Al Sadd's passing average by about 100 passes extra this season according to Prozone, the QSL’s statistics and analysis partner.
 
Playing as much with his back to goal as facing it, he crucially links up the majority of Sadd’s play, as can be seen on the radar graph by the incredibly high number of passes. More importantly, his assists ratio is extremely high, he is well known for his trademark defence-splitting passes that lead to goals. 

As Al Ahli’s Head Coach Zlatko Kranjčar put it at today’s QSL Round 4 pre-match press conference, “Al Sadd have become a stronger team this season with the signing of Xavi, the player is a football master and although Sadd were a good passing team before, now they are even better.”

This is perhaps the most important aspect of Xavi’s arrival at the Thani Bin Jassim stadium; the Catalan midfielder has instilled in his colleagues the need to keep the ball and to play a high pressing game. It seems as though the little midfielder has managed to bring some of that Barca magic to Al Sadd’s play after all!

Xavi got a Prozone rating of 97.6.