Barcelona relegates Piqué: the player is no longer essential for the club

At 35 years old, Gerard Piqué's continuity at Barcelona is increasingly complicated despite the fact that he has a signed contract until 2024. The coach, Xavi Hernández, met with the player two weeks ago and warned him that his role in the team he was going to change radically after a season in which he has suffered different injuries and his extra-football activity has transcended in a counterproductive way for the interests of the Camp Nou.

Some versions suggest that the coach would have ordered the defender to leave Barça.

Xavi would not have been so drastic, according to club sources, but in some way he would have invited Piqué to consider whether it was convenient for him to continue as a substitute or if it was necessary to agree on a departure before starting the 2022-2023 academic year.

The player, who is part of the group of captains along with Sergi Roberto, Busquets and Jordi Alba, not only aspires to continue in the team, but also recovers from his tendinopathy at the club to face the preseason in the best conditions and convince Xavi.

The recovery will be as important as the money to decide on the continuity of Piqué before the League begins on August 12.

The amount of the debt that the entity has with the footballer would be around 50 million euros.

The club will aspire to have the money to try to force the departure of the central defender trained in the Barcelona youth academy.

The only alternative is that he agrees to reduce substantially and not only to defer his income, like the rest of the players who earn the most from Barça.

Piqué knows that Xavi has agreed to sign Christensen from Chelsea, and longs to also hire Koundé, from Sevilla, or Koulibaly, from Napoli.

The coach has warned the board that it is necessary to incorporate contrasted defenses after the team can no longer solve the games from the offensive imbalance, as was the case in Messi's time.

The renewal of Araujo and the continuity of Eric García further complicate Piqué's Barça future, who last season was already absent for a month and a half due to injuries and played several games in precarious conditions due to the team's needs, as admitted by the Xavi himself.

"The coach doesn't want to risk it and Piqué knows that he is no longer a starter and a priority," they say from the Camp Nou offices.

More information

Piqué: "I won't agree to retire as a substitute"

The figure of the center-back is now uncomfortable for the team and for the club after being one of its leaders, as Tito Vilanova, Pep Guardiola's assistant, warned in June 2011: "Without Piqué, we would drop the invention," he said in an interview with EL PAÍS.

The player's protagonism progressively increased to the point that he was not only decisive on the pitch, but also in the offices when he mediated for Rakuten to be the star sponsor of Josep Maria Bartomeu's mandate.

Piqué gained power over time and reached the status of third captain in 2018 after the departure of Mascherano and Iniesta.

The same year he resigned from the Spanish team, after the World Cup in Russia, and concentrated on Barcelona.

Extremely competitive and solvent, even in recent months despite his precariousness, Piqué has not only been indisputable, but has agreed on his line-ups with the coach at times when his ailments have forced him to manage his efforts, especially in the last season in which he could not finish some games, for example against Real Sociedad or Mallorca.

The physicist conditioned the participation of a footballer who in a certain way ended the exercise playing a card and whose presence was always taken into account at the time of the signings that were raised at the Camp Nou.

Although it has never been a slogan, the club has tried not to incorporate a central defender who could bother or compromise Piqué's ownership.

This explains why De Ligt was ruled out.

episodes against

Until Xavi has stood up and the fit of the defender is very difficult for a team that has closed a year in white and is in such an unsustainable financial situation that it needs to reduce its wage bill by 160 million euros to place it at about 400. Although the player is willing to negotiate and lower a salary that increases over the years -

published that his gross salary was around 2.33 million a month -, the coach is concerned about his repeated injuries and his life outside the Camp Nou.

The last episodes have played against the player, especially the business with his company Kosmos, the same one that mediated in the contract signed by the Spanish Federation and Saudi Arabia for the Super Cup dispute and the one that owns Andorra.

The Piqué

does not stop growing to the discomfort of Barça.

His separation from Shakira and "an unprofessional life" have not gone unnoticed, according to some opinions from the Camp Nou.

Pique does not share the opinion of those who criticize him at the club or Xavi's vision.

The player aspires to show the coach that, if his problem is exclusively physical, he will be recovered and fit to face the 2022-2023 season.

Ultimately, he wants to be consistent with his declaration of intent: "I will not agree to retire as a substitute," he stated in an interview with EL PAÍS.

The phrase acquires his meaning after his conversation with Xavi.

The coach went through a situation similar to the one that arises now with Piqué in his last season as a player and assumed a change of role with Luis Enrique.

The departure of Piqué, a player who aspires to be president of Barcelona, ​​is more delicate than that of Xavi and Iniesta and even that of the other captains: Sergio Busquets' contract ends in 2023 and he seems determined to end his career in the United States and Sergi Roberto has renewed for one year while Jordi Alba has also agreed to continue until 2024, as has Piqué.

The coach admits the need to change the locker room leadership after Messi's forced departure.

Xavi's plans, however, depend on the board and his ability to sign players who will compete with veterans like Piqué.

The center-back awaits one more season to show that, with or without his consent, he will compete to be indisputable at Barcelona.

The seventh player with the most minutes

Despite his injuries, Piqué has been the seventh player who has played the most minutes this season at Barça, with a total of 3,101 (the most was Ter Stegen: 4,470).

The central defender, who has also scored three goals, began his career at the Camp Nou at the age of 10 (1997) and later signed for Manchester United in 2004.

As of the 2008-2009 season, he returned to Barcelona and has become the undisputed starter with the different coaches: he started with Guardiola and is now managed by his former teammate Xavi.

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on