FC Barcelona legend Xavi Hernandez told FIFA that winning its Club World Cup tournament as a player was like “touching the sky”.

The legendary number six did so twice - in 2009 and 2011 - on the orders of Pep Guardiola, and remembers the experience fondly.

“It gives you the feeling that you touch the sky when you are club world champion,” the former midfielder beamed.

“You see different styles of play, you’ve played against teams from Oceania, South America and North America and, well, it’s nice.”

“I think there’s going to be a before and after this competition,” Xavi predicted, which was a nod to how the format has been restructured.

While the Club World Cup was previously a winter affair, where a few clubs from the mentioned continents battled it out in a short tournament consisting of late knockout rounds in the Middle East, it will now take place across the Atlantic on US soil with 32 outfits looking to make it through the group stage and then the final with lucrative prize money on offer.

The club of Xavi’s life Barca missed out on qualification while he still manned the Montjuic dugout, and will therefore rest up under his successor Hansi Flick over the summer as bitter rival Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid represent Spain.

While Los Blancos have been drawn into a group containing Al-Hilal, Pachuca and RB Salzburg, Atleti must finish in the top two among Paris Saint-Germain, Botafogo and the Seattle Sounders to keep progressing.

Xavi believes that the new Club World Cup will be “an opportunity for the different clubs in the world to measure themselves at a very high level”, and he remembered a 2006 shock defeat to Brazil’s Internacional a few months after the Blaugrana had beaten Arsenal in Paris to claim their second Champions League crown.

“It’s difficult. You don’t usually know these teams that much. I remember that it is a different type of football, different, perhaps more physical, [with] more contact,” Xavi quipped.

FC Barcelona’s last victory in the Club World Cup came in late 2015 when Xavi had already moved on to Al-Sadd. It beat Argentine giants River Plate 3-0 in the final, thanks to a strike from Lionel Messi and a Luis Suarez brace.