For anyone who’s ever sent out a hopeful job application, rest assured: someone out there aimed higher. Or maybe just weirder. According to the Associated Press, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) recently received an emailed resume purporting to be from Xavi Hernández—the legendary Barcelona midfielder and, until recently, their head coach. Somewhere, perhaps, a “why not shoot your shot?” coach is nodding in quiet approval.

Xavi? Guardiola? The Inbox of Dreams

Here’s where it stretches from odd to outright delightful: the same hiring committee also found a message supposedly from Pep Guardiola—Manchester City’s top dog, still under contract with City through 2027. Details shared by the Associated Press indicate that neither application was legitimate. The emails were simply claims, not contacts from the multi-trophy managers themselves. No word yet on whether the email signature included “Sent from my iPhone.”

Indian media reports apparently treated Xavi’s apparent interest with some seriousness before the AIFF stepped in to clarify. Both coaches, as the federation plainly stated, were not suddenly seeking a new adventure in Indian football. The source highlights that Xavi has been without a team since Barcelona let him go in June 2024—a fact that, at best, made the story plausible enough for a raised eyebrow or two, but Guardiola is still fully locked in at Manchester City. There’s wishful thinking, and then there’s trying to lure world-famous managers via anonymous email.

The Real Stakes Behind the Strange Applications

Amusing as the imposters are, India’s soccer program really is at a pivotal moment. The men’s squad has parted ways with Manolo Márquez after just one win in eight games—a tough run, by any standard. The Associated Press explains that Márquez left less than a year into his tenure, the departure happening by mutual consent earlier this month. In the wake of his exit, the federation sifted through a towering stack of 170 applicants, trimming the field to three unnamed finalists. As grand as it would’ve been to welcome a World Cup-winning Spaniard, the search remains firmly on planet Earth (for now, at least).

The AIFF’s openness about the fake applications suggests this isn’t the first time hopeful candidates (or pranksters, or fans with a mischievous streak) have tried backdoor tactics. It does beg the question: how often do high-profile jobs get these sorts of celebrity “applications”? More importantly, has anyone ever sent in a cover letter as someone even less plausible? If so, what’s the weirdest name to ever hit a football federation’s inbox?

The Human Urge for an Audacious Shortcut

There’s something both timeless and timely about this incident. In an era of autofill forms, AI-generated portfolios, and a job market more crowded than most Black Friday sales, someone went full throttle on “fake it ‘til you make it.” Grouping all facts cited in the AP story—the string of applications, the timeline of Xavi’s coaching departure, the context of Márquez’s struggles, and the detail of Guardiola’s current deal—it becomes clear that stories like this breathe life into the margins of everyday news. The names alone were almost enough to sway the imagination, which perhaps says as much about how we crave a good headline as it does about the vigilance of modern hiring committees.

Would anyone at the AIFF have paused for a secret moment of joy before binning the application? Or, for a fleeting second, did anybody allow themselves to dream, “What if…?” The mind reels, politely, at the behind-the-scenes conversations: Did someone print out the fake Xavi email, just to hang above the water cooler?

As the outlet previously mentioned, the Xavi rumor picked up enough steam in Indian media circles to warrant a public denial. There’s a lesson here about the seductive power of big names, and how they can tiptoe from nonsense into news with surprising agility.

Finalists Wanted, FIFA Legends Need Not Apply

India’s coaching shortlist, for the record, now stands at three real human beings—no aliases, no famous alter-egos, at least until proven otherwise. Whether the next head coach is a struggling up-and-comer or a local hero remains to be seen. If this particular stunt inspires a new category of outlandish applications, well, maybe that’s just part of the wild, wonderfully human circus that is modern job-hunting.

Is there a future where “Xavi” emails his CV to Botswana’s FA? Will the application list one day feature Ted Lasso, Don Draper, or somebody claiming to be Maradona’s ghost? In these inboxes, reality ambles along behind possibility, sometimes not quite catching up until the punchline lands.

Sometimes, the story’s in the footnotes—not the shortlist.