How Gerard Pique Fought Back from World Cup Nightmare to Excel for Barcelona

Gerard Pique trotted into the 18-yard box and toward the back of his own net, his head down and a look of defeat across his face. Having been stormed past by Jeremain Lens, he'd fallen to the ground and trailed the play, watching helplessly as Arjen Robben burnt scorch marks into the Arena Fonte Nova's turf before burying a shot into the top-right corner.

By the time Pique arrived in the box, the scoreboard read Netherlands 5-1 Spain. Somehow, though, it felt even worse than that; it felt like 8-1. Or 10-1. In just 79 minutes, La Roja had conceded almost as many goals as they had in their previous 19 games at major tournaments—the defence breached, an empire toppled. 

Across the board the defending champions had imploded, the defence spectacularly so. Pique, along with Sergio Ramos, had been torched in Salvador: Wesley Sneijder and Robin van Persie punished his positioning; Robben and Lens punished his legs.

Xavi labelled the night "a fiasco." Marca readers demanded Pique be removed from the XI. When the subsequent meetings with Chile and Australia arrived, manager Vicente del Bosque obliged—Pique didn't play another minute in Brazil. 

Humbled, he returned to his club, Barcelona, in August, the 28-year-old declaring he was no longer among the world's best central defenders—"I have to get that title back," he said. But it wouldn't be straightforward; Barcelona was changing from what Pique had grown accustomed to. 

Luis Enrique was busy transforming the Blaugrana: Rigorous training sessions were challenging previous benchmarks of physical commitment; a more explosive, direct style was being introduced; veteran centre-back Jeremy Mathieu (a challenger to Pique) was being integrated into the squad; the XI was being prepared to regularly rotate; close friends Cesc Fabregas and Carles Puyol had gone.

A period of evolution was unfolding, a trophyless 2013-14 season having hastened the need for change at the Camp Nou. In charge, Enrique was prepared to be bold, to fast-track the transition. And the Asturian wasn't afraid to assert his authority, declaring himself a "leader" who would "build a new Barca"—a Barca in which stalwarts and established stars would fight for their places like any other player. 

For Pique, adjusting proved difficult. A serious hip injury in April 2014 had hindered his fitness; a new contract signed in May had perhaps taken the edge of a player Pep Guardiola had sometimes suspected of coasting. Pique was also a man pursuing other interests in business, a man with a young child (he now has two) and a man who'd known nothing but on-field success. A slip was almost inevitable, a cocktail of factors tugging at the Catalan's attention and hurting his game.

And, at the beginning of the 2014-15 campaign, hurt it did. 

Del Bosque left Pique out of his Spain squad for meetings with France and Macedonia in September. Enrique sat him on the bench in early matches against Athletic Bilbao, Levante and Paris Saint-Germain. And when October arrived, his performance in Barcelona's Clasico defeat to Real Madrid drew backlash—a match sandwiched between his quarrel with police in Barcelona and his use of a phone while sitting on the bench during the Supercopa de Catalunya. 

All wasn't well.

Pique's relationship with Enrique felt strained, he'd admitted his frustration toward the manager's rotations—"nobody wants that," he told ESPN FC's Graham Hunter—and negative headlines quickly followed. December might have brought a somewhat more settled time, but then came the trip to the Anoeta to open the new year. Pique, among those benched in Basque country, watched on as Barcelona lurched toward a crisis with a loss to Real Sociedad. That week, the club reached institutional turmoil on all fronts, simmering issues bubbling to the surface among the squad, for the manager and in the boardroom. 

But then something changed. Everything changed. For Barcelona and Pique.

A roaring 3-1 victory over Atletico Madrid kickstarted a run of 11 straight wins—the aggregate score 42-8, the clean sheets totalling six. The Guardian's Sid Lowe would later describe the victory over Atletico as Barcelona's "catharsis," the game that "became the first day of the rest of their season." The club had stared into the abyss, the unknown, and rebounded. The crisis became something to resist; the players revitalised by a force to rebel against. 

Lionel Messi embodied the shift in mentality best, but Pique wasn't far behind him. It was if he'd needed a turbulent descent to jolt him, to coerce his best out of him. Like for Barcelona as a whole, the Atletico game became Pique's turning point. 

In the 11-game run he made nine starts, three of which came against Diego Simeone's ferocious Atletico—the brick wall Barca couldn't topple the previous season. Each time, Pique walked away triumphant and having blunted Simeone's attack with his consummate style, his confidence suddenly surging.  

But there was something else, too. The Catalan centre-back looked fresh. Energised. Light on his feet. Those weary legs seen against the Dutch in Salvador were gone, Enrique's early-season rotations proving beneficial as the campaign wore on. Pique, like his team, had found a new lease of life. 

After a surprise loss to Malaga, the Blaugrana put together a jaw-dropping stretch: 18 games, 17 wins, one draw, 54 goals scored, eight goals conceded and 11 clean sheets (seven straight to finish the run). Among the victims were Manchester City (twice), Paris Saint-Germain (twice), Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Valencia. 

Pique started 15 of those games, was man of the match in two—against Real Madrid and Celta Vigo—and helped Barca to eight clean sheets in their final 10 league games, the second last of which came against a familiar foe: Atletico. 

The trip to the Vicente Calderon was essentially the first of three finals for Barcelona; win them all and a historic treble would be theirs. Pique started that gauntlet by suffocating Antoine Griezmann, followed it up by doing the same to Bilbao's Aritz Aduriz and finished by shutting out Juventus' Carlos Tevez. For the season, that trio had scored 78 goals between them. Pique saw to it that they wouldn't add to that tally, clinching the treble in the process.

"Two trebles?" Pique said, per Lowe, basking in the triumph in Berlin. "The absolute business—and it doesn’t get any better than winning like that, after January when it looked like everything was falling apart."

For Pique, a season that began with doubt, frustration and questions ended with his feet on the European Cup, a victory cigar in his hand and a big fat smile on his face.

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