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Pique's change

2022-09-22T10:42:44.012Z


The central defender, who has gone from playing to helping, symbolizes the new role of the Barça captains


Gerard Piqué likes to be an art and a part, a player and a businessman at the same time, never a spectator and less so at a football match, as has become customary this season at Barça.

The Barça central defender has only been a starter in one of the eight games for his team, the one in the League that he played at Cádiz, and he played the second half against Vicktoria Pzlen in the Champions League.

Last Saturday he watched the match against Elche from the Camp Nou bench in the company of Jordi Alba and Sergi Busquets.

None of the four FC Barcelona captains lined up because Sergi Roberto was absent due to an Achilles tendon injury and the bracelet was left in the hands of goalkeeper Ter Stegen.

Sergi Roberto (20%), Alba (30%) and Busquets (59%) add more minutes than Piqué (18% out of a total of 270).

Not everyone experiences their situation in the same way: Sergi Roberto knows that he is a complementary player due to his versatility and ability to cover the right-back position that lately falls to a central defender like Koundé while waiting for Bellerín to adapt.

Busquets is the metronome and the capital piece of the team that the coach doses to optimize his performance: he has started in five games and completed 426 minutes.

And Alba maintains his international status despite losing ownership after the appointment with Rayo and being the third option as a left-back behind Marcos Alonso and Balde.

The worst unemployed is Piqué.

The Catalan ranks fifth in the central defender ranking behind Koundé, Araujo, Eric García and Christensen.

The competition for his position is maximum as Xavi already warned him at the end of the season and stressed before the pre-season tour of the United States.

Piqué took on the challenge of continuing in the squad and made an effort to recover from it after playing injured during some games last year -he suffers from tendinopathy- when Barcelona was playing for qualification for the Champions League.

"He can help us in another type of role," warned the coach once the current football season began, before facing Valladolid.

"We'll see how it goes, it depends on his feelings and mine" closed Xavi.

Piqué is silent at the moment and consequently we must refer to his already published opinions when he was already warned of possible problems with his continuity at the Camp Nou.

"I will not accept to retire as a substitute," he said in an interview granted last October to EL PAÍS.

He also publicly argued that if he had to leave "for new blood to come, then I'm leaving" as a reflection of the 2-8 loss in Lisbon against Bayern Munich in the Champions League played in August 2020. Nothing to do with the times in who was considered a vital player, also by his coaches: "Without Piqué, we'll lose the invention", confessed Tito Vilanova, Pep Guardiola's assistant at the time, in June 2011.

Pedri, in any case, has now mediated in his favor from the concentration of the Spanish team: “Alba and Piqué are spectacular captains, they help us a lot and bring happiness.

There are minutes for everyone, there are many games”, said the player from Tenerife when the substitutes are still news due to the indifference shown against Elche.

Piqué was seen abstracted at times, thoughtful at others, little worried on the bench for a game that the Barcelona players resolved and closed soon (3-0).

The player knows that he is in the news because of his little participation in the team and also because of his separation from Shakira, the mother of his two children, and the appearance of a new partner, as well as because of the business of his company Kosmos.

The mediation with the Spanish Federation and Saudi Arabia in the organization of the Super Cup and the Davis Cup now have less prominence than Andorra.

And it was also discussed after the production of Griezmann's documentary about Piqué's interest - denied by the board - for the purchase of 24.5% of Barça Studios finally acquired by Jaume Roures.

The Barça club considered precisely the possibility of sanctioning the footballer with "25% of a month's salary, which could amount to more than 300,000 euros", for the documentary on Griezmann.

Barça understood that Piqué was causing "very serious damage" by asking the entity to interact with his private business and interposing "his interests with those of the club", according to information published by El Mundo.

The same newspaper also reveals in its latest edition that Piqué became the highest paid center-back on the planet when in 2018 he signed a five-year contract for 142 million gross, an amount that could have been renegotiated with the arrival of Joan Laporta as president .

The defender secured a fixed income of 12.5 million net per year, which could reach up to 15 with prizes and variables.

The player later agreed in 2020 to praise his relationship with the institution in exchange for deferring his salary due to the pandemic, so that the amounts agreed in subsequent years were 18 million gross in 2020-2021;

27.7 in 2021-2022;

29.5 in 2022-2023 and 40.8 in the last one, 2023-2024.

The contract also included a "tax bonus" for the Treasury sanctions

The information is added to the one already published on Wednesday about Messi's "demands" when he negotiated his renewal for three seasons with the club in June 2020. The player from Rosario asked, among other things, for a bonus of 10 million for the signing;

He can terminate the contract whenever he wants with a symbolic clause of 10,000 euros -the one at that time was 700 million- and recover the salary cuts caused by covid-19 with 3% interest.

Barcelona responded to the news with a statement expressing "its outrage at him."

The Barça entity not only censored it "for an interested leak of some information that would form part of a judicial procedure" but also announced that "the legal services are already studying the appropriate measures to undertake."

Barçagate

when this information and documentation has not been shared by both parties”.

The businessman Piqué continues to be active, the footballer does not play and the activist has reduced his presence on social networks, in programs such as El Hormiguero or in events with Ibai Llanos while trying to escape from the paparazzi through the streets of Barcelona.

Piqué, 35, still has two years left on his contract, until June 2024, the same as Alba, who has 33. The short-term future of both is, however, an unknown if one takes into account that his high salary does not correspond to his importance in Xavi's team.

Alba was even offered to Inter in August -Barça assumed more than 50% of the record-, an attitude that caused the side's anger - "I am one of those who go face to face" - and Piqué turns a deaf ear to proposals to retouch a contract that he renegotiated with former president Josep Maria Bartomeu.

Sergi Roberto, on the other hand, agreed to continue for only one season -until 2023- under austerity conditions at the age of 30 and Busquets' intention is to play in the MLS from next summer.

Busquets, 34, prefers to travel to Miami at the end of his agreement with Barça in 2023. The change of leadership on the field and in the locker room is therefore assured and will be progressive due to sporting and economic needs until it culminates at the most in 2024. The captains have ceased to command and power has passed into the hands of the coach and ultimately the president Joan Laporta.

Everything seems to be planned from the club and, however, nobody is yet able to predict what Piqué's response will be.

We must not forget that who now helps instead of directing always said that he would like to be president of Barça.

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Source: elparis

All sports articles on 2022-09-22

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