Barçelona has announced that Busquets is leaving after 15 seasons in the first team, 31 titles plus a final league on the way, and a lifetime dedicated to the Barça club. The last member of Guardiola’s memorable Barça is leaving.
Sergio Busquets leaves. As it was sung, the captain has made official, through the club, his goodbye as a Barça player through a video remembering his entire Blaugrana career. On the way to 35 years, which will turn on July 16, the midfielder leaves the team of his life with 31 titles plus a League that is to come and that he himself will raise at Camp Nou. An unforgettable final photo. Among his titles, was the Sextet of the 2008-09 season, of which he was the last survivor. That team with Valdés, Alves, Piqué, Puyol, Abidal; Busquets, Messi, Iniesta; Messi, Etoo, and Henry, or the one of the 2010-11 season, with the additions of Pedro and Villa in the front, is already football history and is definitively extinct.
Busquets leaves with 719 Barça games which could be 724 if he plays the last five days of the League. He only lacked Xavi (767) and Messi (778) to catch. Busquets, who has missed just 15 games through injury since making his debut, has been a Swiss watch since Guardiola, trapped by the simplicity of his football, promoted him from the subsidiary in the 2008-09 season. When he debuted with Pedrito (later Pedro) in an official match against Racing, on the second day of the League, some critics put the cry in the sky. Someone even compared it with that cruyffada of Lucendo in Valladolid. But what Guardiola was doing was giving way to a player who has become a legend.
Busquets made big in midfield competing with Touré, and learning from Xavi and Iniesta; and has ended up lighting and teaching Pedri and Gavi. As usual, Cruyff was (Guardiola aside), one of the first to see that Barça was facing the best midfielder in its history. “He looks like a veteran, he makes the difficult easy.
He plays one or two touches and defensively he gives lessons all the time because he is always in the right place, “he said already in September 2008 anticipating a memorable career. Admired by players like Riquelme, or coaches like Del Bosque, he has not been a player of highlights but of technicians. For everyone, it has been essential. He has not made a mistake giving a pass and he was not going to make a mistake at the end of his career.
