A team player par excellence, an extension of the coach on the court and captain-elect for his ability to represent the squad in mediation with the board, Sergio Busquets (Badia del Vallès, Sabadell, 33 years old) hardly makes sense as a soloist, ignored in the galas that reward individualities, none as sovereign as the Ballon d’Or. Not only has he been a stranger in the nominations but the day he deserved the distinction as the best player in a tournament was after the Spanish team lost the League of Nations against France at San Siro.
Busquets enabled Oyarzabal to make it 1-0 in the final, before the comeback between Benzema and Mbappé (1-2), and completed a stupendous performance in the semifinals against Italy. The controversy generated by the goal of the PSG striker made the award so anecdotal that many commentators wondered what story came that trophy shown by the captain of the Spanish team trained by Luis Enrique. So the midfielder was asked more about Mbappé’s play and offside, and by extension about the refereeing regulations and the application or not of the VAR, than about the MVP.
It also happened in the last European Championship when the coach was questioned for waiting for Busquets after he tested positive for covid. The footballer responded in an outstanding way during a competition that ended in the penalty shootout in the semifinals against Italy. As with Barça, La Roja does not stop spinning and, nevertheless, the starting point is Busquets. The difference is that the midfielder’s football has a greater validity in the national team than in the Camp Nou, surely because there is no more representative team player than Busquets.
He does not win awards because he does not score goals or make a difference, but rather defines the style since his irruption at Barça, which reached the top of the world with Guardiola (2008-2012). Nobody had noticed that footballer who did not know very well if he was a forward or a midfielder, so unprecedented in the lower teams that his internationality came in 2008 with the U21, until the former Barça coach, today at City, gave him the command before the blessing of Johan Cruyff after a draw with Racing. “Barça played their best game in many seasons,” said the Dutchman in his column of The newspaper.
The Catalans wove their best football around Busquets, although the story of the game was written from the trio formed by Xavi, Iniesta and Messi, the cover of the 2010 Ballon d’Or. Puyol and Pedri compressed the team and Busquets managed the position and possession game so marked at Barça. There are few better footballers than Busquets when the field is shortened in the same way that it becomes expendable if the field is enlarged, a substantial difference to understand the reason for his success with Spain and his difficulties in Koeman’s Barcelona.
Xavi Hernández does not stop claiming Busquets. “In a high block, pressing up is fundamental,” he said in an interview with The vanguard. “How he tactically reads the game and how he recovers the ball! How you see the pass between the lines and how you know where to attack! He does not lose individual duels and generates a lot. Now, in the open field he is one of the slowest players physically, ”Xavi concluded. Luis Enrique’s soccer map helps Busquets as much as the choice of interiors and teammates in the core: Gavi or Pedri on one side and Koke or Rodri on the other.
The same circumstances do not exist in Barcelona because the players and the drawing are different and surely the way of seeing Koeman’s game also varies. The meeting point is that both are lacking in figures and, given the precariousness, it is considered that the coach handles himself better and is more ambitious than the Barcelona coach. Perhaps he also has a greater sense of team and avoids being split in half, interested in showing his virtues and hiding his defects, aware in any case that the opponent focuses on penalizing mistakes, as Deschamps warned in Spain-France of San Siro.
Perhaps because he was his coach at Barça and gave continuity to Guardiola’s work, Luis Enrique knows how to generate the best ecosystem for his characteristics and understand Busquets. The coach knows that it is difficult for his captain to look back and withdraw, because he always goes face to face, a neighborhood player, capable of metabolizing the music theory of La Masia, son of one of the most heterodox goals, unique in footwork like Busi , “The doorman without hands”, as he described it L’Équipe.
“If I were a player I would like to look like Busquets,” proclaimed Del Bosque. The player, always committed to the team and interpreter of his coaches, thanked the compliment and in an interview with the program Valdano Universe He stated: “Being in a position that is not so mediatic or spectacular makes it more difficult for them to give you prizes. But I’m not changing it for anything. I prefer collective titles to individual ones ”. Busquets is used to his invisibility being associated with victory, nothing to do with the award he received after Spain lost to France on the day he was MVP.
The captain looks to the United States to end his career
Busquets’ career will hardly end at Barcelona. Although he has a signed contract until 2023 and, like the other captains – Piqué, Jordi Alba and Sergi Roberto – he agreed to lower and defer his salary, the midfielder is thinking about the possibility of culminating his career in foreign football, possibly in United States. The plan would be similar to the one followed by his teammates Xavi, who is still in Qatar, or Iniesta, a player for Japan’s Wissel Kobe. The goal of Busquets, in any case, is to fulfill his agreement with the Barça club and also continue with the national team, of which he is captain after the departure of Sergio Ramos. Busquets has been international as many times as Iniesta, the author of the goal that gave the World Cup in 2010 to Spain: 131. Xavi, for his part, has 133; Iker Casillas, with 167, and Ramos, with 180.
At 33, Busquets has the confidence of Luis Enrique and is also a starter with Koeman. Lately, however, he has been used to being substituted at Barça and there has sometimes been discussion about his continuity at the Camp Nou. The player already ruled out an offer from Paris Saint Germain, who was willing to offer 125 million, and chose to renew in 2018 for Barça.
The departure of Messi last summer to PSG increased the prominence of Busquets at the Camp Nou, especially in the dressing room, where he always defended the team against individual decisions, manifested when the Bartomeu board of directors opted in October 2020 for the renewal of certain contracts – Piqué, Ter Stegen, Lenglet and De Jong -, to pressure the group in full negotiation for wages because of the covid.
Busquets knows that the players, and especially the captains, are in the spotlight after President Laporta has given Koeman a margin of confidence.
You can follow EL PAÍS DEPORTES in Facebook and Twitter, or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.