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After joining the Barcelona ranks at just 10 years old before a move to Manchester United where he would make his professional debut, Gerard Pique has called it a day at 35 for his hometown club. We’ll run through the sensational career of the Spain legend here.
Pique joined United when he left the Barcelona academy after Sir Alex Ferguson prized away one of Spain’s best up-and-coming talents. The centre-back only played 12 times in the Premier League across four seasons, and four times in the Champions League. Incredibly, this saw him score two Champions League goals en route to United winning the competition in 2008.
Culers, us he de dir una cosa. pic.twitter.com/k3V919pm1T
— Gerard Piqué (@3gerardpique) November 3, 2022
Pique’s few appearances in the Premier League also saw him head back to Barcelona with a league title from England too, putting him in a rare category of players to win both La Liga and the Premier League.
Many consider the Barcelona side of 2008-2012 to be the greatest football team of all time. Given how they won two Champions Leagues and battered everyone in Spain, breaking countless records in the process, it’s hard to disagree.
What makes Pique’s time with his boyhood club more impressive is not just how many titles he won, but how he missed very few games across the seasons of their dominance.
In fact, 2011/12 and 2013/14 were the only seasons he played less than 40 games in all competitions, which ironically, were two seasons where Barcelona didn’t win the title in their glory years.
In total, Pique won three Champions League trophies with Barcelona after winning back the trophy in another treble-winning campaign in 2014/15.
The Barcelona legend also accumulated eight league titles, winning four in a row and three in a row at stages, while also bagging himself seven Copa del Rey medals and six Supercopa de Espana titles too.
With his 102 caps being the same as the legendary Raul, Pique sits as the 11th most-capped player in Spain history.
In fact, considering his career spanned only eight years with the national team and much less than the likes of David Silva and Andres Iniesta above him in the list, it means very few players played more minutes than him during the years of 2009-2018.
What’s more incredible is how this was Spain’s most successful period, as Pique played at the back in the 2010 World Cup triumph, and the 2012 European Championship win.
