After the game, after a Barça’s exciting win against Valladolid in a crazy Camp Nou, the ball did not stop rolling on the grass. The starters went to the locker room and the substitutes remained participating in a long training session. Lasted an hour. There they were sweating Pique, Alba and Sergi Robertothree of the four captains, to whom Xavi has given a secondary role.
Although none as eloquent as the central defender, who has abruptly disappeared from the starting eleven. The left-back began as a starter against Rayo, he was in the final minutes of the win at Anoeta and did not even set foot on the pitch against Valladolid. Sergio Robert, instead, he always plays, integrated into the noble zone of the second unit of the team that Xavi has designed.
Piqué, on the other hand, does not appear on any list. Neither in the first, where there is only room for the chosen ones (Busquets is the only captain who maintains his bracelet, influence and importance in Barça), nor in the second where there is a battalion of substitutes fighting to enter.
Xavi already warned him
pique is invisible. Three league days, 270 minutes of competition and not a single one on the pitch. He does not even go out to warm up, cloistered as he remains on the bench, digesting the new landscape that the coach predicted for him.
“Before going on vacation I spoke with Gerard. I was quite clear. I told him that we would strengthen ourselves in that position and that it would not be easy for him because there would be a lot of competition. He is a player who can help us in another type of role, we will see how he goes, it depends on him”, warned Xavi.
They were not empty words. Resounding message from the technician and more resounding facts. Four of the five central defenders that Xavi has in the squad have already played. He does not. Eric, with 270 minutes (100%), is the one who heads that ranking. “He’s a hell of a professional. At 21 years old he could be captain,” the coach even said about the former City player after his spectacular match against Valladolid in a reflection that directly affects one of the four owners of the armband.
Eric has played it all (270 minutes out of 270), Araujo is second with 261, Christensen is third on the list (150) and Koundé, as soon as he was registered, completed his first 90 minutes.
Araujo, with 261 minutes (89%), is second since he serves Xavi both as a right-back and as a right-footed centre-back. Christensen, who suffered “a feverish process” on Sunday that caused him to be absent, has played 150 minutes in the League (55%), while Koundé started hours after being registered in the League (90 minutes, 100%) after missing the two first days for the lace of the salary ‘fair play’.
Extremely low profile
And Pique? Any. Zero minutes in the 270 competition. Invisible and silent the captain walks, submerged, moreover, in a complex perfect storm because it has coincided with the separation from Shakira. He neither plays nor speaks in the real world, nor in the virtual one.
His last message on Twitter dates back to June 9, an eternity for someone like him, accustomed to media overexposure. Piqué now has a low profile, extremely low, which conflicts with his traditional way of being.
“We cannot say that Jordi Alba or Piqué are substitutes. At some point they can be starters and they will play”
The transition without the ‘sacred cows’
At 35 years old and with a contract until 2027, he has entered a new role, perhaps similar to the one entrusted to him Luis Enrique a Xavi in his last season (14-15) at Camp Nou. He was the substitute Rakitic.
But the Spaniard never left the midfielder three times in a row on the bench. And less at the beginning when the message is more powerful because it serves as a border to delimit the new hierarchies, with Lewandowski already assuming the role of leader.
That course started and finished the then captain with the substitute tracksuit. Like Piqué now, as much as the coach tries to sweeten that the transition of the ‘sacred cows’ is not completely closed. Although Xavi now imposes “meritocracy” because he has resources in the locker room to execute it.
With the signing of two central defenders, the vital space for the Barça captain has been reduced
He has signed two central (Koundé, for 50 million, and Christensen, at zero cost) that have been delimiting Piqué’s vital space. “Balde plays because he deserves it, it’s his time”, stressed the coach, who later revealed that “there will also be moments for Jordi and Gerard”.
Waiting for the “rotations”
Those moments do not come, although from next Saturday, coinciding with the visit to Sánchez Pizjuán to face Sevilla, “the rotations” will begin.
But Pique start from far behind. It is the fifth and last central. He is the owner, yes, of an endless competitive soul that has kept him in the Barça elite for almost three decades, always offering excellent performance.
For now, his role is another. “We cannot say that Jordi Alba or Piqué are substitutes. At some point, they may be starters and they will play,” said Xavi, appealing to the “direct competition” that he can handle right now in the squad.
“They are accepting this situation with great humility, but they have to change it. They can be very important, very important”
“They are going to play, they are going to play. They are the captains, they are leading the locker room”, Xavi revealed, indicating that “they are accepting this situation with great humility, but they have to change it. They can be very important, very important”.
And Piqué, meanwhile, is silent. Only the others talk about Piqué, who is experiencing a crossroads that he never saw coming. “He is having a hard time, you have to help him. Ignore the news that wants to leave the footballer as frivolous and without feelings,” Laporta said more than two months ago about the central defender who has disappeared from Barça.
Piqué is silent, but refuses to give up.
