On Thursday evening, a person very close to Piqué reflected: “There are opera endings and there are operetta endings, and this is one of them. It’s one thing that Gerard left like a gentleman and another thing is that he left happy.”
Pique always believed that sooner or later he would end up playing, and he hasn’t played much. He has not managed to convince Xavi, among other reasons, because his game is not what it used to be either. On top of that, he has had to hear the whistles from the Camp Nou because his renewed contract with Bartomeu is one of those that will increase the wage bill that Laporta is talking about. 2022 is the year of his separation with Shakira and the year of a new couple relationship. Too much noise and too many elements against it, even for him, who has always been a noisemaker. The difference is that now he wasn’t enjoying it and Piqué is one of those people who drinks life in gulps. Consistent with what he had always said – “I will no longer play for any team other than Barça: being on the bench for three months, yes; a whole season, no”–, Piqué has activated his own lever and has ejected from the bench. He understood the culerada – “Culers, I have to tell you something” – and, looking towards the box, he said: “I’ll be back”.
Football-wise, the best center back in the club’s history will fold on Saturday. “Barça is organized around Piqué”, said Tito Vilanova. His partnership with Puyol, complementary both in terms of play and character, belongs to the Barcelona legend. Like his five fingers raised when there was the 5- 0 in Mourinho’s Madrid or the pride with which he showed the shirt to the Barça fans when he closed the half-dozen 2-6 at the Bernabéu, on May 2, 2009. Or how he got tangled up in the net of a goal at Wembley in 2011. Or like his tears on the afternoon of October 1, 2017, after having gone to vote in the independence referendum and having played the game of shame against Las Palmas .
The captaincy came to him by seniority, not by ascendancy over a dressing room that did not vote for him. It has been whistled conscientiously in Chamartín – “a symphony for my ears” – and in the field of “l’Espanyol de Cornellà”. He has done business on the edge of conflict of interest and has always been a decade ahead of everyone else.
The life of the professional Gerard Piqué has been exuberant in the country of “don’t mean it”. He has always tried to attract attention. The record he leaves behind, combined with a “the best is yet to come” personality, is the guarantee that a chapter will close on Saturday at the Camp Nou, but that the history of Gerard Piqué at Barça will continue.
