Barcelona“I expect the best Camp Nou in history, one that has never been seen. That there will be no empty seats. That the players of Inter Milan will enter the field and hate the profession of football for 90 minutes. Let the people push from the beginning and, in the end, we will surely succeed.” The moment he uttered this harangue, Gerard Piqué wanted to eat the world. It was April 2010, he was 23 years old and had become indispensable to Barça from his loves under the orders of Pep Guardiola. Energetic and quick-witted, he was about to meet Shakira, who would be the mother of his children, at the gates of the World Cup that would be held in South Africa months later. The Bonanova headquarters exuded a fresh aroma of triumph and positivity. He supported the team in defense with Carles Puyol, with whom he would also form a tandem in the Spanish team that would be proclaimed world champion.
Piqué in a press conference prior to playing with Inter in 2010.
Inter, then coached by José Mourinho, sweated blood in a full Camp Nou and surrendered to Barça. The local fans responded to Piqué’s call and cheered to the point of exhaustion in the second leg of the Champions League semi-finals. It was necessary to overcome a 3-1 deficit to get a ticket to the final which would be played at the Bernabéu. But the feat could not be completed. With 10 men from the 28th minute due to the expulsion of Thiago Motta, the whole team black and blue he resisted the Blaugrana offensive gale and conceded only one goal at the end of the game. It was scored by Pique, as it could not be otherwise. The subsequent celebration of the Italians, who would end up lifting the European Cup against Bayern in Madrid, ended in a drenching after someone ordered the lawn sprinklers to be turned on.
More than a decade later, who is trying to motivate the culerada before another crucial Barça-Inter (9 p.m., Movistar Liga de Campeones) is Pedri, who in the precedent of Mourinho, Milito and company was a 7-year-old boy who he took note of Andrés Iniesta’s movements through the television of the Tasca Fernando, his father’s bar and the headquarters of the Barcelona club in Tegueste (Tenerife), where he followed his favorite team’s matches with delight. “It’s a final, we play for almost everything,” says the Canarian player, today an indispensable beacon in the middle of the Blaugrana midfield. The forcefulness of his speech does not come close to that of Piqué in 2010, but the importance of his game in Xavi Hernández’s plans does square with that of the Barcelona scorer in Guardiola’s book, a domain he has retained with the rest of the coaches who have directed him at Barça, including Xavi himself, who used him almost whenever he was available last season.
The highest contract on the staff
But the trend suddenly changed in June, when the trainer informed Piqué that he would no longer be indisputable due to the massive arrival of competition (Christensen and Kounde) and the need to renew leadership in the dressing room. They explain from Sant Joan Despí that Xavi did not take very well that one of the captains had “such an accelerated life” outside the field of play. For a moment, the offices thought that the coach’s message would herald the farewell of the centre-back, beneficiary – between salary and deferrals – of the highest contract in the Barça staff and author of a reflection that has been haunting him for months: “I’ll leave when I see I’m not important.”
However, Piqué reacted with the same winning spirit that made him so excited between the departure of Tata Martino and the arrival of Luis Enrique in 2014. More or less recovered from his pubic problems, he made it clear to both the technicians and to the managers of his desire to continue at Barça and – very importantly – in Barcelona, the city where he intends to keep his children’s permanent residence after the traumatic separation with Shakira, who is in favor of taking them to Miami.
It is very difficult to dissociate the personal storm Piqué is experiencing from the sporting situation he is experiencing at Barça. “Everything has come together for him, but he is intelligent. He manages the substitute quietly, discreetly from a corner and working hard in training while waiting for an opportunity”, they explain to the ARA from the sports city In his current version, the central does not step in puddles on social networks, hires lawyers to defend himself from the paparazzi and sends his agent to look for explanations when he reads information that makes him uncomfortable.
Today’s Piqué carries a heavier rucksack than 12 years ago and defends closer to his own area because his physique is not what it used to be. However, the injuries to Kounde, Christensen and Araujo place him among those chosen to face this Wednesday’s European final against Inter, in which Barça is gambling much of its future in Europe, and on Sunday in the first classic of the campaign. With his hierarchy and experience he will want to show that, unlike what he wished for the Italians in the European semi-final in 2010, the profession of football is still loved.
