One day eight, as it could not be otherwise, his talismanic number with which he made history in Barcelona, Andrés Iniesta announced that he is stopping playing football professionally. But the game continues. “The grass experience is ending, but I can’t be far from football, which will continue to be my life. I am doing the construction of the day after step by step with the company. I am training, I need to learn, make mistakes, train to work with the academies and I am starting the coaching course. I am quite stubborn in this regard and I will try to do my best in this field. “I would have liked to continue playing until I was 90 years old, but it is not possible.”.
Asked if he would like to coach Barcelona, Iniesta said that “I haven’t even been to the first class yet, so I have a long way to go before I can think about this. For now I hope that Flick continues for many years, a sign that things are going well for our club. But I would like to return to Barça one day.”.
On the stage of the America’s Cup Experience, which was once the IMAX of Port Vell, Andrés Iniesta, alone on stage, explained to more than 500 people that he feels happy on the day of his farewell: “It has been like a story, which began on the Fuentealbilla track. I have always had two teams in my heart, Alba, with which I never got to play professionally, and Barcelona with which I lived the proudest moment when I shared the Ballon d’Or podium with Leo and Xavi. Three guys from the house in the Ballon d’Or is very big.”
Visibly moved, Andrés continued: “Thank you for joining me this day and those who could not be there, you will allow me to be moved, I never thought that this aunt would arrive but the tears of all these days today become tears of emotion and pride, of that child from Fuentealbilla who had “the dream of being a footballer and he achieved it after a lot of effort and never giving up.”.
During the event, Iniesta reviewed his life through football, presenting a series of videos in which his first coaches at Albacete appeared, his father, who remembered the trip from Fuentealbilla to Barcelona and assured that “It was difficult, but I would do it again”.
Serra Ferrer, the coach who gave him the opportunity to train for the first time in the first team, defined him as a teacher and Luis Enrique, who was the one who gave him the assist on a goal, recalled that the first time I saw him I thought, “If we have to go to war with these little ones, let’s face it, but then I realized the immensity of their game”.
Iniesta consolidated himself under the leadership of Van Gaal, who wished him “May you take the step you create with your family, which I know is the most important thing for you.”.
Iniesta recalled his time with the National Team praising his teammates with whom he shared a dressing room, especially highlighting coaches Lopetegui, Luis Aragonés and Vicente del Bosque. “The whole career is summed up in the goal that the World Cup gave us, but that is a goal that I did not score. We all marked it, even Dani Jarque helped us from wherever he was”he stated.
Iniesta compared this era of the National Team “with the best club period of my life, Barcelona. It was magical. I take away from that time what we and the people who followed us enjoyed. That time symbolizes everything for me. Being in the club of your life, wearing the shirt that you have worn since the youth ranks. That group that we formed that team was unique”. Guardiola, the leader of that project wanted “Everything he knows he can apply in the world of football, I don’t know doing specifically what, because what he knows is not learned in coaching school”.
Iniesta ended up remembering his time in Japan, which he defined as the best on a family level and of which he feels very proud.
The event was attended by many of the people who have been by his side in these 22 years of career and throughout his life, such as his parents, his wife, his six children and his sister.
There was no shortage of members of the current Barcelona squad led by Hansi Flick, who was accompanied by Gavi, Ansu Fati, Ronald Araújo and Dani Olmo and also joined by Sergi Roberto, Albert Celades and Gerard Piqué.
Former coaches like Juan Carlos Unzué, Eusebio Sacristán, Aureli Altimira, Paco Seirul·lo or Jordi Roura. Former teammates like Ludovic Giuly, Gerard López, Carlos Gurpegi and Joan Capdevila, who attended on behalf of RCD Espanyol.
The president of FC Barcelona, Joan Laporta, accompanied by Deco, and Joan Soteras, president of the Catalan Football Federation, who by virtue of his position represented the RFEF, did not miss the event either. Emilio Butragueño and Marta Santisteban attended on behalf of Real Madrid.
His friend Jordi Évole also attended, who was the master of ceremonies at his farewell ceremony at Barcelona, a club where he confessed that “I would have liked to retire, but Barça needs you to give 300 percent of what you have and that was not possible, as a coach I would like to return in whatever category”.
At the end of the event, under a photograph of Andrés at four years old, his family posed with him while the entire audience stood up and gave him their last ovation. For now, because he has already warned that the legend continues.
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