Only when the true footballing greats retire, do we begin to appreciate their value to the game. It’s a particularly odd trait but has been seen time and again.
Xavi Hernandez hung up his boots two years ago and Barcelona have never replaced him. Andres Iniesta will be next.
El Ilusionista was at least afforded the courtesy of being able to sign a ‘lifetime’ contract on Friday which will do exactly what it says on the tin. He will stay at the club in some capacity for as long as he is happy to do so.
It might actually be one of the first times that a club has taken such a bold step, but such is Iniesta’s imprint on the club, that to have done anything else would’ve been foolish in the extreme.
To see Xavi playing his trade in the Qatari league for example is just a bad joke. Maybe the remuneration and weather are great, but Barca need a rap on the knuckles for allowing him out of their clutches in the first place.
At least Iniesta’s future is assured. A player who came to the club as a 12-year-old and who never went home, he is second in the all-time appearance list (behind Xavi), and level with Lionel Messi with 30 trophies won – the most in club history.
His commitment has never been in question and he’s rightly been one of the standard bearers in the most successful periods for Barcelona. Captain supreme, he is an example to every young player wanting to follow his lead into the first team.
Not worried about his next tattoo or showing off his new car, nor bleating about parity in salary, he just gets on with business. A down-to-earth persona and a true family man. He is, genuinely, all things to all people.
The great shame is that this contract comes at a time when he is on the way down rather than up. A succession of injuries had put his place in the team at risk and the thought of not being as important as he felt he needed to be was largely what authored the delay in signing.
At least in the experienced Ernesto Valverde, Iniesta is back where he belongs at the top of the pecking order. Starting virtually every game in a system tweaked to suit, he is looking somewhere close to his best again. Even without trusty sidekick Xavi beside him, Valverde is managing to get an extra few percent from the man from Fuentealbilla.
Not quite a renaissance, more a re-alignment.
Let’s enjoy the legend whilst we can.
