Sergio Busquets says goodbye to Barcelona, ​​\u200b\u200bhis only club, where he “confused” world football

A reconnaissance waterfall spilled on Wednesday Sergio Busquet after the world champion midfielder with the Spanish national team in South Africa 2010 announced that after the end of the current season, will separate from Barcelona, the only club he represented in his 15 years as a professional. He has been praised by teammates, former teammates, coaches and even sages and football lovers.

“The only number five who is a number ten and does everything right is Busquets. He confused world football. Since he appeared, we’ve started from the fact that number five has to make a good pass, from the fact that if the team plays badly it’s because number five passes the ball badly. We forgot that before it was the number ten who made you play well and that the number five had to score, get between the central defenders. Now it seems that if the team plays badly it’s because of the high five. And five can’t do everything. Of Busquets there is only one”, praised him Juan Roman Riquelme last year.

“He is very intelligent, he understands everything. It’s not easy to play in the best team in the world. If you survive so many years in Barcelona, ​​​​you are very strong. Because if not, they’ll take your job. I was lucky to be able to coach him,” she said. Joseph Guardiolawho made his debut for Barça on 13 September 2008, in a match against Racing de Santander at the Camp Nou for the second round of the Spanish championship.

Pep’s cycle in the Catalan side began with two defeats in his first three matches (against Wisla Krakow for the Champions League preliminary round and against Numancia for the championship) and the home draw against Racing brought down storm clouds. In this context it was the debut of the lanky 20-year-old midfielder, son of the club’s former goalkeeper Carlos Busquets, who immediately aroused suspicion and distrust in many fans.

But Johan Cruyff, that he always saw football as one step ahead of the others, that was clear from the start. “Technically he’s superior to Touré Yaya and Keita, and positionally he looks like a veteran. With and without the ball”stood out after the debut of the player born in Badía del Vallés, a municipality located 20 kilometers from Barcelona and whose municipal stadium has been called, since 2011, Sergio Busquets.

After that draw, the Blaugrana racked up nine victories that would lay the foundations for the first championship of the Guardiola era, while Busquets consolidated himself as a squire of Xavi Hernández AND Andres Iniesta in a legendary midfield that will end up winning everything in Barcelona (with the ever-bright star of Lionel Messi) and in the Spanish national team.

His time with the national team was also not without its critics, especially after his World Cup debut in South Africa on 16 June 2010, when Vicente Del Bosque’s side lost their opening group stage match 1-0 against Switzerland. That day, Busy He picked up all the sticks for his double five performance with Xabi Alonso. But Del Bosque backed it up in the postgame press conference: “If I were a player, I would like to look like Busquets; It’s all right.”

Time has proved the veteran manager right, as the midfielder he aspired to be had stellar work in the remaining six games of the tournament his side won, which allowed Spain to remain in the league for the first and only time. history with a world title. Two years later, always with a supreme version of Busquets, he will win the Eurocup which takes place in Poland and Ukraine.

“He is a legendary player. One of the best midfielders in world football and the best defensive midfielder in the history of Spain” Xavi Hernández commented when he announced his retirement from the national team in 2022. At that time, his current coach at Barca already knew that he would be very difficult to convince him to continue at the club for at least another year and he never tired of repeating how difficult it would have been to find a replacement in his place if he had finally left Underrated player: “Busi He does everything in midfield yet he never plays the Golden Ball. Sounds like a scandal to me.”

But Busquets, galas and prizes never mattered to him. “I won’t tell you I’m not thrilled, but it’s not a priority thing for me nor do I value it much. Praise from coaches, teammates or football people is more important to me than what a jury says, what what he’s looking for is the media footballer. And I’m not,” he explained. In fact, he’s always run away from fame, makeovers, tattoos, designer clothes and fancy sports cars. Because he lived off the pitch with the discretion and simplicity with which he always acted on the pitch.

And this was his main virtue: making the difficult easy, transforming what seems complicated into something very simple. How to say goodbye to the club of your life on social media with a video of just two minutes. On his 35th birthday, Busquets, who has taken on the responsibility of first captaincy since Messi left for Paris in August 2021, has said enough. He was the last remaining player from the golden age of the Barça team.

With his tactical intelligence and his intuition for always being in the right place at the right time, both when recovering the ball and starting the game, he led the best Barça in history. He currently holds a record that includes 31 titles (8 Leagues, 7 Copas del Rey, 7 Spanish Super Cups, 3 Champions Leagues, 3 Club World Cups and 3 European Super Cups) and will definitely add one in a few days. , when Barcelona are once again proclaimed champions of the league.

Luis Enrique was another of the coaches who appreciated him in the Catalan club and also used him in the national team. “Busi is a guarantee, an exceptional player often unfairly criticized. It’s essential for me, I would like to be able to give him rest, but it’s a whim I can’t afford”, he came to say about him.

Busquets has been indisputable with every manager he has had over the past fifteen years. That’s why he played 719 games as a Barça player, only behind Messi (778) and Xavi (767) as the player who defended the Barça shirt the most times. All these years she has been the extension of her coaches on the pitch. Because all the coaches who had him under their orders wanted to be Sergio Busquets.

For him, if one day he starts his coaching career after hanging up his boots, he won’t need to. One thing Guardiola is clear about: “I am convinced that he will be the coach and that sooner or later we will see him on the bench.”