Feature Article

interview

"IÂ know what I can achieve and I know what

I'm going to achieve"

Player:

Xavi Simons

Interview by:

Sean Walsh

“Give me every power!” Xavi Simons greedily replies, prompted on which anime ability he’d want most as a footballer.

“When I was young, I was just playing a lot of games on the PC and I remember watching anime on the television. That’s still with me. It’s something I really enjoy.”

Anime has been almost a rare constant in 22-year-old Xavi’s ever-changing life, one that has already taken him from Amsterdam to Alicante, to Barcelona, to Paris, to Eindhoven, to Leipzig, and now to London. You can see it splashed across his social media and in his goal celebrations, perhaps most fondly when he scored in the famous orange of the Netherlands for the first time in June 2024 against Iceland.

“This one is a special one!” Xavi says, reminiscing on how he mimicked Naruto ‘gathering nature energy’. “It was my first goal in the national team and my favourite character is Naruto. I really wanted to do this one.”

It starts to become a bit clearer just why Xavi identifies with anime and Naruto in particular.

“With Naruto, the story he explains and how he sees life, all he does on a daily basis… I see myself a bit in him, that’s why it’s really special,” Xavi clarifies. “I think we share the same things, he’s passed a lot of things in his life, what he has achieved is really nice. I see myself as well.”

Nobody can say, ‘Xavi, you cannot do this’. I know what I can achieve and I know what I’m going to achieve. That’s important., and I have my family right behind me. They’re all I need.

In fairness, it’s been a whirlwind two decades on this earth for Xavi already. He rose to prominence as a 13-year-old when his Barcelona highlight reels went viral, effectively making him a child celebrity. Boot deals and adverts followed before he even played a professional minute of football.

But in the modern age where everyone can voice their opinions on so many different forums, Xavi has also felt the brunt of criticism that comes with such fame from an early age.

“Everyone knows how challenging social media can be,” he says. “You have the positive things, but you have the negative things as well. I think I’ve handled it in the best possible way.

“Nobody can say, ‘Xavi, you cannot do this’. I know what I can achieve and I know what I’m going to achieve. That’s important, and I have my family right behind me. They’re all I need.”

Fast Facts

Jersey

#7

Position

Attacking Midfield

Team

Tottenham Hotspur

Age

Birthplace

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Beyond anime, family has been the constant in Xavi’s life. When he joined Tottenham Hotspur from RB Leipzig last August, his unveiling pictures featured many of his relatives.

“They mean everything for me. It’s my life. Football is really important to me, but at the end, the most important thing in life is my family,” he declares, almost trailing off into thought.

“Being there for me on a special day when I signed for Tottenham was really, really special. I’m really happy I can achieve my dreams together.”

While Xavi has been getting to grips with the rough and tumble of the Premier League, he’s still managed to put family first. Last month, he and Tottenham collaborated on a video raising awareness for Alzheimer’s Society, featuring his Grandma Rinia who was diagnosed with the illness.

“I’m not going to lie to you, the start was a little bit hard for everyone when we heard the news,” Xavi admits with a heavy sigh. “But at the end of the day, we have to try and enjoy our time together. See the positives. I love being with my grandma and calling her every day. Seeing her smile, that’s something that makes me even more happy. I’m enjoying the little moments more.”

Everyone that comes to my home tries to play against me, and so far nobody has beat me. I’m still waiting.

At home, his’ family know the real ‘Xavi’. As it turns out, he doesn’t even go by ‘Xavi’.

“In my family, no one calls me Xavi. Everyone calls me ‘Boykie’. It kind of means ‘Little Guy’ in Dutch,” he says.

That’s the inspiration behind his personal Instagram account, which takes the handle ‘boykienoxavi’. Xavi is one of many footballers to regularly post from a profile of this type. There’s no sponsors and fewer match pictures, instead focusing on what happens at home as well as out and about with friends and family.

“I wanted to bring a different way to show who ‘Xavi’ is. More personal life, personal goals, personal dreams.”

Xavi recently opened up a challenge on ‘boykienoxavi’ to anyone who claimed they could beat him at his favourite pastime, ping pong.

“We cannot start this!” he laughs when that challenge is brought up. “Everyone that comes to my home tries to play against me, and so far nobody has beat me. I’m still waiting.

“When I was 11, I moved into La Masia (Barcelona’s academy) to live there. There was a ping pong table. Since then, I’ve been playing every day. I remember I was getting beaten by the older guys, but I said to myself that I needed to get better. I’m always playing in my house.”

Spotlight

Xavi joined Spurs in August 2025 and inherited the iconic No.7 from club legend, Son Heung-min. He became an instant fan-favourite in north London and you will find plenty of supporters wearing his shirt on matchdays.

“I spoke with Pedro Porro,” Xavi continues, hinting that there may be a Spurs forfeit in the works. “He said to me, ‘I would win easily’, so I said to him, ‘OK, let’s do a game’. We’ll see, when one loses, they’ll have to do something for the other one!”

Xavi is already a popular figure in the Tottenham dressing room, and he has been helped on by their returning striker, Dominic Solanke, a fellow noted lover of anime. Solanke and Xavi have not yet combined for an anime celebration the way the Dutchman has with other team-mates in the past.

“That’s true!” Xavi says, adding he is closer with Solanke than others due to their mutual obsession. “We didn’t play a lot together, now it’s maybe four games. I think he wanted to do his own celebrations, but now when he scores a lot of goals, we will together.

“With Dom, we share that like of anime. But it’s a really good group, especially with him as well, he’s really nice. Hopefully we can celebrate a lot of goals together.”

What would really make Xavi happy is for Spurs’ media team to make an anime of him the way they did for Europa League hero Solanke upon his return from injury.

“Yeah, we’ll have to talk with them!” he chuckles. “Let’s see when we can get this done. But I was really happy for him as well. It was a really nice video.”

Spotlight

Xavi has embraced Spurs culture wholeheartedly since joining the club. Back in November, he was given a personal tour of the Tottenham neighbourhood by legends Ledley King and Michael Dawson, which included a trip to the iconic Chick King fast-food shop opposite the stadium.

The Tottenham dressing room has been an easy one for Xavi to settle into not only because of the characters within it, but the way the diverse squad bond through card and board games.“I spoke with Pedro Porro,” Xavi continues, hinting that there may be a Spurs forfeit in the works. “He said to me, ‘I would win easily’, so I said to him, ‘OK, let’s do a game’. We’ll see, when one loses, they’ll have to do something for the other one!”

Dating back to the days of Harry Kane and Mauricio Pochettino, there was a dominant ‘UNO’ culture at Hotspur Way, one that saw the introduction of a WWE belt for the squad’s reigning champion.

“It’s still big!” Xavi says of that culture. “It’s still a big thing in the dressing room, we play every day. It’s a nice way to stick together.

“I play UNO, a lot of table games, I’m playing dominoes a lot at home. I would say it’s a family thing because we always play together, we are really competitive against each other. It’s something that’s always been in the family and brings us together.”

Obviously, Xavi, as a professional athlete, has that extra edge when it comes to competitiveness.

‍

“I was born like this,” he insists. “I have an older brother and he was always the one winning against me when I was younger. That brought a bit of competitiveness to me.”

I think it’s a different way to show the world our personality in different ways, not only football. Maybe people think we are footballers 24 hours (a day), and that’s true, we live for our sport and want to achieve everything in our sport. But besides that, we love different things as well. We’re still young, we want to experience new things.

Even with this hardened mentality, Xavi does still see himself as more of a free spirit. You can see that not only with how he plays as a roaming No.10, but off the pitch with his taste in music and fashion.

“We have a lot of discussions in my family,” he says about his musical preferences. “With me, because I speak a lot of languages, I listen to everything. Rap, hip-hop, classical music, Brazilian music. It depends on my mood.

“One song I listen to before going to the pitch is ‘Je te laisserai des mots’. It’s a French classic song. It relaxes me.”

Xavi describes his own fashion sense as ‘unique’, but admits that there’s a reason why so many players of his generation could say the same.

“I think it’s a different way to show the world our personality in different ways, not only football,” he elaborates. “Maybe people think we are footballers 24 hours (a day), and that’s true, we live for our sport and want to achieve everything in our sport. But besides that, we love different things as well. We’re still young, we want to experience new things.”

So how has it been for him living in two of the world’s fashion capitals of London and Paris? “It’s been really nice. You see different cultures, different ways people dress. You get inspired a lot. That’s really nice about these big cities.”

It was in Paris, with French giants PSG, where Xavi completed a lifelong ambition of playing alongside his idol, Neymar. Even with Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé there, the mercurial Brazilian was the one to watch.

Spotlight

Neymar was one of Xavi’s favourite players when he was growing up, and the two would go on to share some history together. At the age of 12, Xavi appeared alongside the Brazilian in a commercial while still in Barcelona’s La Masia academy, before the duo finally rubbed shoulders on the pitch with PSG.

“Everything,” Xavi replies when asked what it is that fascinates him about Neymar. “He was the one that inspired me when I was young, he still inspires me. The way he expresses himself on and off the pitch, that’s something incredible.

“I know the real Neymar. People maybe only see the footballer, but the character and person he is off the pitch is an incredible guy, a family guy, a really warm guy.

“I remember being at home and saying to my mum, ‘I need to play with this guy one day’. He’s my idol, I wanted to achieve that. I worked hard and achieved that. Being with him every day, seeing how he is, how he does things, for me was really special. He’s the one who inspired me the most and the one that has helped me most in my football career.”

Though Xavi is at Spurs and Neymar is back home at Santos, they will still be united in one way this year, with both donning the new PUMA Future boot designed for the playmakers of today and tomorrow.

“I’m really happy to make this change,” Xavi says, picking up the boot in a light-blue colourway, but also glancing around the room at the other vibrant livery on offer to him. “This is a special moment for me, stepping into the Future with PUMA. We felt it was the right time to do it. I’m really happy to create my own history and legacy.

“The most important thing is I feel comfortable in the boot. It feels amazing. All the designs and colours I really like. It suits my style, it’s an attacking boot, it’s perfect to me.”

Be it in his boots or outside interests, his playing style or his playlists, Xavi is a mab on his own path. His fascinating journey certainly reads like a story. Maybe one day it will be turned into an anime.