Gerard Pique’s last game at Camp Nou did not hit the heights of his entertaining 14 and a half years as a Barcelona first-team player.
Saturday’s straightforward 2-0 La Liga win over Almeria lacked the drama which has generally followed the defender on and off the pitch.
But it was still an emotional occasion for the 92,605 in the stands, with the stadium’s biggest attendance since a 2019 Clasico a fitting mark of respect for all Pique has done for the club.
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The 35-year-old may add one more to his 616 Barca appearances at Osasuna on Tuesday evening. But he will not add to his haul of 30 trophies – including three Champions Leagues, eight La Liga titles and seven Copa del Reys – having decided to step aside and accept he can no longer perform at the level required.
As Pique said in Thursday’s shock social media message, his connection with Barca will continue. Given how much he enjoyed being the story on and off the pitch, it is difficult to imagine him being able to stay away from the club too long.
Culers, us he de dir una cosa. pic.twitter.com/k3V919pm1T
— Gerard Piqué (@3gerardpique) November 3, 2022
All that noise, often of his own making, has at times overshadowed his vital contribution to the team.
He leaves as one of the Catalan giants’ best-ever defenders, freeing up significant space on their salary bill but leaving a big void of personality to fill.
Pique scored in his first Clasico after returning to boyhood club Barcelona following four years with Manchester United in the summer of 2008, racing forward in open play to finish a counter-attack for the final goal as Pep Guardiola’s team won 6-2 at the Bernabeu.
Yet the signature victory of those early Guardiola years was the 5-0 La Liga win over Jose Mourinho’s Madrid at Camp Nou in November 2010.
That was the peak of the all-conquering side with Andres Iniesta and Xavi pulling strings, and Lionel Messi as its devastating decider. But also vital to their success was the ‘opposites attract’ centre-back partnership of Pique and Carles Puyol.
Pique did not score in that game but did provide its most enduring image.
With his ‘manita’ five-fingered salute to the crowd, the 23-year-old grandson of a Barca vice-president was placing the result within the club’s history — linking to the legacy left by the iconic Johan Cruyff.
“I was in the stadium in 1993-94, when Barca won 5-0 with Romario, and it was incredible as a fan,” Pique later recalled. “Then I had the fortune to experience (a manita) as a player.”
Guardiola’s team relied on ‘Piquenbauer’ as the ideal Barcelona centre-half, mixing the technical ability to play out from the back with the physical and competitive qualities to defend the open spaces behind a super-high defensive line. That made him a key member of the side which also won the 2009 and 2011 Champions League finals against his old club United.
“We prayed that Pique would not get injured, as without him the whole thing fell apart,” Guardiola’s assistant and then successor Tito Vilanova told El Pais of that period. “It was terrible the effort we asked of him, so difficult when other teams attacked us.”
Even before Guardiola stepped down in 2012, a perception grew that so much success so early took an edge off Pique’s focus and performances. His pop-star partner Shakira and burgeoning business activities led some to wonder whether his desire and intensity remained.
Luis Enrique had his doubts after taking over as coach in 2014, especially after the now 27-year-old let off a stink bomb on a plane heading for a pre-season friendly. More serious was a late-night incident with a traffic policeman which brought a €10,500 fine.
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A nadir came when Pique (and Messi) were benched for a mid-season trip to Real Sociedad, which Barcelona lost 1-0. Luis Enrique selected both the following week, and they quickly returned to form as the team lost just two more games to collect another La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League treble.
Pique was excellent in a Champions League run past Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich to a 3-1 final win over Juventus in 2015. With Puyol retired, he was the defensive leader who provided the cover and nous so the team could field all of Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez up top.
“(The traffic incident) was not too important in itself, the important thing was the situation,” Pique said that week. “In that moment, I focused on what I was able to do myself, to train harder, to play at the top level that I could, and it seems that has brought results.
“We must not stop now. We must win everything again next year, and get the most out of this unique generation of players.”
City derbies with Espanyol have always rivalled Clasicos in importance for Pique, and regular brushes with the neighbours’ players and fans brought out his sharp side.
The gulf between the two Catalan clubs meant many games were easy Barca wins, but not all.
After heading in Messi’s free kick for an 82nd-minute equaliser at Espanyol’s Cornella-El Prat in February 2018, Pique pointedly celebrated by shushing the home fans who had been chanting insults about Shakira, another moment which cemented his reputation among Barca’s hardcore fans.
That rivalry was kept burning the following year when Pique was a guest on Spanish TV show La Resistencia and said “…in assets, I’ve got more than Espanyol’s budget this year”. That boast could have been correct, given the development of his business career to the point where his personal contacts helped his club secure shirt-front sponsor Rakuten.
As a defender, Pique continued to be just as valuable to the team.
Ernesto Valverde’s side were not as stylish as Guardiola’s or Luis Enrique’s, but they conceded just 21 goals in the 34 games it took them to clinch the 2017-18 La Liga. That was some achievement, given full-backs Dani Alves and Jordi Alba often raided forward, and none of Jeremy Mathieu, Thomas Vermaelen, Samuel Umtiti or Clement Lenglet proved a reliable long-term partner for him in central defence.
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“I don’t worry about what Pique does (off the pitch),” Valverde said in 2018. “The only thing that upsets me is that I don’t have the business ideas he does.”
Coach and player did not always agree, though.
“Whether Valverde wants it, or not, we’re going partying in New York,” Pique said after that year’s 5-1 Clasico win… which we know because Pique’s own company produced the documentary in which he says it.
The years of mismanagement and skewed priorities in the Camp Nou boardroom and dressing room caught up with team and player alike in that 2019-20 Champions League quarter-final loss to Bayern Munich.
Pique was in the picture for every one of Bayern’s goals but unable to do anything to stop the humiliation of the barely believable 8-2 defeat.
The 33-year-old’s most memorable intervention of the night, part of UEFA’s improvised eight-team tournament in Lisbon to get the pandemic-delayed competition finished, came on Spanish TV directly after the final whistle.
“It was a horrible game — awful, just shameful,” he said. “It is very hard, but hopefully it serves for something. We all need to reflect. The club needs changes. Nobody is untouchable, last of all me. If fresh blood is needed to change this dynamic, I would be the first to go. We have hit rock bottom.”
That defeat did lead, directly or indirectly, to many departures — including then-coach and president Quique Setien and Josep Maria Bartomeu, club captain Messi and other long-serving players including Suarez and Ivan Rakitic.
But Pique decided to stay.
He had already made clear he would not play for any other club. He was also contracted up to June 2024 in a deal which guaranteed him a total of €142million (now £124m; $141.7m) before tax over its six years.
The morning after that Bayern game, Pique had recovered his head sufficiently to think of his other interests too.
He spoke with Setien’s assistant Eder Sarabia about possibly coaching ‘his’ lower-division side FC Andorra at some point. (Sarabia now does).
The end of Pique’s playing career did not seem close back in March, when he was racing forward in the closing minutes, hoping to score a fifth goal which would have been another ‘manita’ Clasico victory.
Still, that 4-0 win seemed hugely important, for both club and player. After previous Clasico defeats, Pique had shrugged and accepted it as inevitable due to Barca’s financial issues. “It is what it is (es lo que hay),” he said after Real Madrid won 2-1 at Camp Nou in October last year.
But five months later, Pique’s “We are back” tweet from inside the Bernabeu dressing room was in tune with the narrative Barca’s returning club president Joan Laporta wanted the world to accept, despite the club’s financial issues being far from being resolved.
We are back.
— Gerard Piqué (@3gerardpique) March 20, 2022
Pique could also claim to have helped the team off the pitch too. His relationship with other long-serving players, including Messi, was hurt when he agreed a salary deferral with Bartomeu in 2020. Another deal, done with Laporta in August last year, allowed summer signings Memphis Depay and Eric Garcia to be registered with La Liga.
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He had also kept contributing on the pitch — including a crucial added-time header in the comeback semi-final win over Sevilla on the way to lifting the 2021 Copa del Rey, Barca’s only trophy in the past three seasons.
Despite a groin issue which hampered him through the second half of 2021-22, new coach Xavi relied on his former Barca team-mate’s experience and leadership, picking him ahead of younger options Ronald Araujo and Eric Garcia as the team hit form to amass the points they needed to secure a top-four finish and Champions League football for this season.
Pique’s almost decade-and-a-half spell in Barcelona’s first team really ended 50 minutes into the Champions League group game at home to Inter Milan on October 12.
Holding out his arms to signal that everything was covered, then looking back in panic as he realised he had let Inter’s Nicolo Barella in behind to score Inter’s first goal was cruelly unfortunate but also not totally unexpected.
He was also caught out as Robin Gosens scored the Italians’ third in that 3-3 draw, and whistles rang around Camp Nou every time he touched the ball late on.
The game signalled that Barca were not yet back, not at all.
The result condemned them to elimination from the Champions League at the group stage for a second successive year. And Pique’s performance showed that, at almost 36, the gig was up for his footballing career. This time, there was no defiant post-game interview or social media message.
Xavi dropped him for the following weekend’s Clasico at the Bernabeu, and there were more whistles than cheers from around Camp Nou when he entered late in a 3-0 La Liga win over Villarreal a few days later.
Last week’s 4-2 Champions League group finale away to little-known Czech side Viktoria Plzen was another hard dose of cold reality.
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Xavi had made clear Pique was now sixth choice centre-back, even preferring to field former Chelsea left-back Marcos Alonso out of position to playing him. Laporta also openly told socios — club members — at Barcelona’s recent AGM that his contract was a millstone the club could not afford.
Pique then quickly moved to seize control of the situation by announcing that Saturday’s game against Almeria would be his last at Camp Nou.
Even those closest to him were surprised, but nobody has made any attempt to persuade him to play on.
Circumstances, as well as sentimentality, put Pique into the XI on Saturday night for a game which Barca marked with special ‘Semp3’ messaging (and marketing) punning on the Catalan word for ‘forever’ and his shirt number.
There were hugs in the tunnel pre-game from long-serving team-mates, including Marc-Andre ter Stegen and Sergio Busquets, who were also wearing ‘Pique 3’ shirts as they took to the pitch. His two oldest sons were similarly kitted out as they took part in what may be their dad’s last ever official team photo.
¡Un XIII muy especial! 💙❤️#Sempr3 pic.twitter.com/fP9iY9gNPW
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona_es) November 5, 2022
There were big cheers each time Pique touched the ball during the opening stages, and then chants of “Pique, Pique” around the stadium after Barca were awarded an early penalty. The man himself told Robert Lewandowski not to think about handing over the ball, only for the Pole to hit a poor spot kick off the post and wide.
That did not stop the party atmosphere inside the ground, even as Barca dominated possession but could not score. Ousmane Dembele and Ferran Torres misses almost suggested they did not want to upstage the night’s main man either. At set pieces, his team-mates kept putting the ball into areas where Pique was lurking, but none quite came off.
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Dembele did make it 1-0 shortly after half-time with a neat solo goal, and Frenkie de Jong soon made it 2-0 from close range. There was warm applause every time Pique won a header, or dealt tidily with Almeria’s very few attacks.
It got emotional when he was substituted late on, hugging team-mates old and new, and dodging a pitch invader, before being replaced by fit-again Andreas Christensen. He tearfully acknowledged the unanimous standing ovation from the crowd, then sat down on the bench he decided he could not accept spending the next 18 months stuck to.
After the final whistle, and the ‘bumps’ from his team-mates, Pique stood on the pitch and everyone watched a video of his finest moments, from the youth team to those Champions League finals.
𝐒𝐄𝐌𝐏𝐑𝟑 𝐏𝐈𝐐𝐔𝐄́ 💙❤️ pic.twitter.com/fqNkkojUrS
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona_es) November 5, 2022
He then took the microphone to speak directly to the crowd himself.
“I love Barca and that’s why it’s the right moment to go,” he said, before breaking down in tears, and being lifted by applause from all round the stadium. “But I am convinced I’ll be back.”
While many within the still-full Camp Nou chanted “Pique, president”, he ended his short speech in Catalan by saying: “I was born here, and I’ll die here.”
As the stadium finally emptied, he sat one more time on the bench, accompanied by his parents. Then he brought out his sons for a last kick-around on the pitch. After that, it was inside to Camp Nou’s executive suites for a hug with Laporta, and posing for photos with directors who have wanted him gone for some time now.
Having accepted the reality of the situation, Pique had chosen his way to go, and made his exit on his own terms.
(Main graphic — photos: Getty Images/design: Eamonn Dalton)
