Pique announces retirement

BARCELONA – Barcelona defender Gerard Pique has announced that he will retire from football when the Spanish league breaks for the World Cup this month.

Pique (35) said tomorrow’s match against Almeria in LaLiga will be his last at Camp Nou for the Catalan club after 14 years in the first team following his return from Manchester United in 2008.

Barca then travel to Osasuna next week for their final fixture before the World Cup in Qatar. “For weeks there has been talk about me,” Pique said in a video posted across social media. “I have not said anything but I want to speak now.

“Like many of you, coming from a football family, I have always been a

Barcelona fan. I did not want to be a footballer, I wanted to play for Barca.

“Recently, I have thought a lot about when I was younger, about what that Gerard would have thought if I told him he would fulfil all his dreams, that he would play for Barça and be a European and world champion.

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“That he would play with the best players, that he would captain the club... football has given me everything, Barca have given me everything, you the fans have given me everything. And now my childhood dreams have been fulfilled, the moment has arrived to close this chapter. I have always said that after Barcelona there will be no other team and that is how it will be. Saturday will be my last game at Camp Nou.”

Pique’s grandad was on the Board at Barcelona and he joined the club’s academy in 1997, leaving for Man United in 2004.

After four years in Manchester, which included a season-long loan back in Spain with Real Zaragoza and 23 first team appearances for the English side, he returned to Barca in 2008.

Under Pep Guardiola, he was part of the side that won the Treble in the 2008-09 season and he will depart having won eight LaLiga titles and three Champions Leagues, among many other trophies.

He also won the World Cup in 2010 and the 2012 European Championships during a nine-year career with Spain, during which time he earned 102 caps before retiring from international football after the World Cup in Russia in 2018.

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