Jordi Alba will not continue at Barça next season. The Catalan winger, who had a contract until 2024, has made the decision to leave the club of his life this June after 11 seasons with the Catalan team. The L’Hospitalet defender will thus follow in the footsteps of another club legend like Sergio Busquets and will leave Barcelona this June.
The decision to leave the culé club by one of the best left-backs in the history of Barça comes for two fundamental reasons: the little prominence of the player and the financial problems that the club is going through. In the first place, Xavi already made it clear to Alba at the beginning of this season that his participation was going to be residual after the explosion of Alejandro Balde. In fact, on the last market day last summer, Barça tried to transfer him to Inter, although at that time the player wanted to stay.
In a second step and no less important is the economic factor. The culé club, led by Mateu Alemany and Jordi Cruyff, met with Jordi Alba’s agents a few days ago to discuss his future. The captain had one of the highest salaries in the squad and for Barça it was a relief that a golden substitute could leave the club to balance the accounts.
Jordi Alba, who had a contract with Barça until June 2024, is leaving the club of his life, forgiving a significant part of the salary he was to receive this upcoming 2023-24 season. This next year he planned to collect a figure close to 36 million euros, deferred payments included. It should be remembered that the club deferred part of his salary a few years ago, like Busquets and Piqué. Of this deferral, Alba would forgive up to 50%, which will mean another relief for the club’s coffers, which is striving to have a healthy financial ‘fair play’ to undertake the necessary operations this coming summer market.
The stampede of heavyweights in the culé locker room is already a reality. Alba’s goodbye comes only a few days after the farewell to another club legend, Sergio Busquets. In just seven months, Piqué, Busquets and Alba leave the club of their lives. The change of cycle that the culé fans have been crying out for years is beginning to take root.
All these players have lived through the golden age of the culé club and have left their mark on the Blaugrana team, but they have understood that it was time to step aside. Only Ter Stegen and Sergi Roberto remain of the Champions League champion Barça in 2015.
For his part, Jordi Alba is leaving Barça after 11 seasons in which he has garnered a commendable record of 18 titles. Six Leagues, five Copas del Rey, one Champions League, three Spanish Super Cups, one Club World Cup and one European Super Cup. He has won everything with Barça since he arrived at the club that saw him grow in 2012 from Valencia, after signing an outstanding Euro Cup with the Spanish team.
In total 452 meetings with the Barcelona jacket, in which he has scored 26 goals and has distributed 82 assists. Data that show that the Catalan has always been more offensive than defensive. Precisely for this reason, Alba has received criticism throughout his culé stage for not protecting the band from him, but he has managed to counteract it with his great ability to unbalance in attack.
Alba’s departure casts doubt on Messi’s possible arrival at Barça. His two best friends in the current squad left the ship when the name of the Argentine sounded louder to return home. Although the journalist Gerard Romero assured that this departure does not affect the arrival of the current world champion, the truth is that it is hard to think that Messi will return without his two main pillars in the culé dressing room.
In addition, the departure of Jordi Alba forces the club to make a move on that left side for next summer or bet on Marcos Alonso, who until now was participating more as a central defender, leaving Alejandro Balde to start on the left flank.
The back pass for Messi
Eleven seasons as a Barça player give rise to all kinds of memories and with Jordi Alba it is no different. The Catalan defender has had better and worse moments during this decade, especially in the extra-sports section. However, beyond having a successful track record and having been part of one of the best teams in history, Alba will always be remembered for his connection with Messi during the nine seasons in which they shared the pitch.
That back pass from Alba’s memory when he won the bottom line always went to the same protagonist, Leo Messi, who managed to beat the goalkeeper on a fairly high percentage of occasions. A play that they repeated every game and that even so was practically indefensible for the rival defenses. Thus came the Argentine’s historic goal in the 2-3 league victory at the Santiago Bernabéu in the 2016-17 season.
The L’Hospitalet defender will say goodbye to the culé fans this coming Sunday against Mallorca at the Spotify Camp Nou. It will also be the final farewell to the Barça parish for Sergio Busquets. Two Barça legends who say goodbye.
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