Sergio Busquets | Leave Barça: walk through a stellar career

Busquets’ decision has matured after a long period of reflection since this campaign began, the last of his contract. He did not know which way to take the clairvoyant Busquets who throws passes on the pitch.

He handled Barça’s downward renewal offer, being as it is “a fundamental footballer” for Xavi Hernandez, who creates a problem to replace him. From Saudi Arabia an unmatched millionaire proposal came to him at the cost of giving up the Catalan lifestyle. Halfway between competition and leisure, the United States Inter Miami option remained with the number 5 shirt reserved for him.

A problem for Barça

Busquets dribbled all the questions about his future, from September, when he came out to deny false information, until January, when he repeated that he would not announce anything at a press conference in the middle of the competition. “Busi has earned the right to decide“, insisted Xavi so as not to put pressure on the captain and friend, while he pondered the answer.

But the coach has had a problem. A serious problem. A void opens up for the team in the axis of the team for which it has no replacement. No money to buy it. Barça has not been able to cultivate a substitute figure in the garden of Sant Joan Despínot even to stop the blow of the helmsman’s march, and in the market there is no one capable of reading the codes of Barca football.

The erosion of money

Busquets’ conclusion is that the future was never going to improve on the glorious past: neither the frequency of titles won, no matter how many green shoots are seen, nor the money received at the Camp Nou, forced as he was to accept a token less than half of what was received this last campaign, the highest in the squad after the departure of Piqué. Jordi Alba’s salary will be at the top of the podium. One issue, the cost of veterans that has eroded the locker room.

Age (he will turn 35 on July 16) accumulates the wear and tear of Barça’s intense calendar after 15 seasons and that discretion that Busquets always enjoyed, and always sought, has yielded to the notoriety of being the recipient of some portion of whistles, nothing special in the case of the volcanic and unstable Barça.

piece of history

A piece of living history becomes a museum object, if not an object of adoration, after 719 matches played, 18 goals scored and 31 titles won. The footballer who would have wanted to be Vicente del Bosque. “If I were a player I would like to look like Busquets,” said the world champion coach (2010) with more than half Barça and who made him debut with Spain in the same season of his debut in the First Division.

Busquets (1.89m, 76kg) progressed so late that he came to Barça at the age of 17 from Jàbac de Terrassa and was not international until the under-21 category. Last December he said goodbye to the absolute after four World Cups and 143 games, immediately after the elimination of Spain against Morocco in Qatar. “The Busi thing is exceptional and is often criticized unfairly. It is essential for me,” Luis Enrique said until the day he resigned.

Symbol of the eternal Barça

Con Busquets another symbol of the best Barça of all time disappears, the “eternal” Barça who chained the first sextet in football history (2009) -he touched the second in 2011-, a record only matched by Bayern Munich in 2020. The footballer who, like Pep Guardiola, the coach who exalted him, He did not stand out in any football quality, except in the instinct and quickness to give the first build pass. His father, Carlos, was a goalkeeper for Johan Cruyff’s dream team. He is still at the club, as the goalkeeper coach for the subsidiary. Guardiola met Sergio as a child, when his father took him to training at the Camp Nou or at the La Masia field, which he also met before moving to Sant Joan Despí.

The master of the center circle

Unlike his illustrious predecessor in the position of four and later a teacher, Busquets substantially improved his reading in defensive actions to recover the ball. No one has moved Busi from the center circle since he won the spot on the 2008 US tour. He came as meritorious, within the group of youngsters from the subsidiary who had promoted to Third with Guardiola, and came out with a place in the first team.

He competed with Touré Yaya in the position (43 games for the Ivorian, 41 for the Vallesan) and already surpassed him in the following campaign (50-37). He saw Javier Mascherano, Alex Song and Frenkie de Jong coming to compete with him for the position of midfielder, and he defended himself against possible replacements against all the midfielders of the decade and a half, and he has already fired them all. Until he says goodbye.

The search for relief

Without clear relief, of course. He could be Frenkie de Jong, but he always missed the simultaneous comparison. Xavi will have to choose the replacement. His favorite is the Basque Martín Zubimendifrom Real Sociedad (24 years old), but it costs 60 million and Barça does not have a single euro to spend.

Joan Laporta’s favorite is the Portuguese Rúben Neves (26) from Wolverhampton, whom the agent Jorge Mendes tries to place at all costs, including even that operation with the transfer of one of those represented, such as Ansu Fati. Another qualified applicant is the Moroccan Sofyan Amrabat (26) from Fiorentina.

Busquets lifted his first title as captain in January -also the first of the Xavi era, coach and friend- and with the League he will exhibit the second and last of the 32 that he has treasured during his Barça stage. He is the last footballer from Guardiola’s squad to have survived, bidding farewell to an entire generation. Who knows if he will be replaced by one who has already said goodbye to the group and returns to pick up the bracelet: Lionel Messi.