Born in Catalonia on the 19th of January 1974, Xavi Roca has already an eight year old experience in the position of Technical Director. He started in 2010 after assuming this task at the Spanish team of Sabadell. During his first season there, Sabadell was promoted to Segunda Division, remaining in this category till Roca’s last season there (2013-14).
In March 2014 he became the technical director of the Cypriot team AEK Larnaca. During his four year term AEK Larnaca carved the big teams of Cyprus up, earned the Cup of Cyprus for 2017-18 season winning the second position of the championship for three consecutive years. Simultaneously Larnaca participated at Europa League’s preliminary rounds. At the end of season 2017-18 Xavi Roca concluded his collaboration with AEK Larnaca.
Xavi Roca started his career as a football player from Barcelona´s Academies (being a true born Catalan) and passed from every grade of La Macia. During all the years he remained in the behemoth Barcelona he played for all the National teams of Spain, from U15 till U21. At the age of 20 he joined Barcelona´s second team and two years later his big dream became a reality when he played for Barcelona´s first team. He played just once thought it was an unforgettable experience! On March 26, 1996 he debuted as a line up player in the match against La Coruña. He couldn´t stabilize himself in the first team and finally when he was 23 he started looking for another destination. His new team was Logroñés, then he moved to Toledo and finally he started being recognized when he played for Villareal. He became one of the main players of the “Yellow submarine” in Primera Division, during three seasons. In 2002 he moved to Español. As he wasn’t very successful there, a year later he left back to Segunda joining first Rayo Vallecano and then Hospitalet and Sabadell. In 2008 at the age of 34, Roca went down under and played for Auckland City FC in New Zealand; with that team he gained the local championship.
