Gerard Piqué has convulsed the world of sport with the announcement of his departure. The 35-year-old Barça captain made it official through his social networks and revealed that Saturday’s game at the Camp Nou against Almería will be his last as a player, despite the fact that he still has a contract until June 2024. These are the reasons that have driven the Barcelona center-back to end a 14-season career at the club of his life.
bench purgatory
Xavi Hernández already made it clear to Piqué that this season was not part of his plans as a starter and that his role would become secondary after the signings of Christensen and Koundé, together with the confidence that the Terrassa coach has in Araujo and Eric García, two of the club’s future bets. His role became that of the fifth central defender, a new reality that the Barcelona central defender has had a hard time accepting, who has even been relegated even further with the possibility of using Marcos Alonso in that position.
The challenge to Xavi Hernández
Piqué accepted the Barça coach’s approach, but replied that he was determined to fight for a starting position and show him that he was the best of the central defenders. In these first months of the season, and especially after being eliminated from the Champions League, his substitution has been confirmed, his physical problems have persisted (his recurring discomfort in his abductors) and he has chosen to step aside, which at At the same time, he helps the club financially.
Piqué has played a total of nine games this campaign. Five in the League and another four in the Champions League, benefited by injuries to Araujo, Christensen and Koundé, all players who are ahead of him in Xavi Hernández’s plans. His level, however, is no longer that of previous seasons. Piqué was portrayed, for example, in the momentous Champions League match against Inter Milan at home. The first Italian goal left him in evidence. Way ahead of his position, he let the ball pass. But Barella came in from behind without falling offside to score. The bad moment of his and also the great numbers of his contract have divided the fans, to the point that part of the stands has ended up whistling at him at the Camp Nou. Even during the last Assembly of Delegates, the directive pointed out to him as one of the obstacles for the improvement of the economy.
The complicated personal moment
The impact caused by his separation from Shakira has been a tsunami in the footballer’s personal life. The player has not had problems when it comes to agreeing with the Colombian singer the distribution of the couple’s properties and money. But they are experiencing a very tough confrontation in court for the custody of their two children. Piqué has also been exposed in the media with his new love affair with Clara Chía, a twenty-year-old who seems to have become the footballer’s new obsession and with whom his paternity would arise again. The audios that came to light talking to Luis Rubiales, president of the Spanish Federation, about the contracts to take the Spanish Super Cup to Saudi Arabia do not leave him in a good place either.
The desire to preserve its image
Piqué has never denied that one of his great wishes is to preside over FC Barcelona in the future. Prolonging his current situation only hurt his image. The figures that were recently leaked about his contract, in which it was specified that he guaranteed 142 million euros gross for five seasons (about 28.4 million gross per year) were another unexpected blow, at a time when Barça is fighting for rebalancing your accounts. The whistles that he has experienced in the stadium in recent games have also raised the pressure on the Catalan central defender, who did not want to end up like this after a splendid 14-season career as a Barça player. With the decision to withdraw from him, he knows that he is helping the club in a delicate moment and, as he assures in his farewell video, the door is left open to return to the club as what it is: one of the legends of him