On the day Andres Iniesta announced his departure from FC Barcelona, the club's Twitter handle shared a minute-long montage of him playing. There's classical music playing in the background, as Iniesta swivels around, outfoxing various opponents.
It was a well-thought out idea. What else could you play, after all? Any other genre of music would have seemed out of place. When Iniesta plays, he is a symphony on two legs. Every manoeuvre, pass or dribble makes it seem like Beethoven had Andres Iniesta on his mind when he composed those classics we listen to even today.
Such has been the little Spaniard's mastery of football and such his influence on matches, that when he tearfully made public his decision to leave Barcelona, European football suddenly seemed a little dimmer.
Iniesta stated, at a press conference attended by his teammates and loved ones, that he will bring to an end his 22-year association with Barcelona, to move to distant shores. "I'd like to be remembered as a great footballer and a great person," he said, as tears rolled down his cheeks.
Nobody in that room doubted his legacy would be any different. After 16 years in the senior team and 35 trophies richer, Iniesta leaves as a legend from a club where his every spell-binding move was the icing on the cake. Iniesta was Barcelona and Barcelona was Iniesta.
As a vital cog of the club's golden era that won everything—and won over everyone—Iniesta was second only to the mythical Lionel Messi in influencing games, with a poetic touch. Alongside his midfield partner of 13 years, Xavi, Iniesta kept Barcelona's tiki-taka play from descending into yawn-inducing mindless passes. Yet, he was greater than his senior.
When he joined Barcelona's youth team, Pep Guardiola watched him with the ball, turned to Xavi and famously said, “You are going to retire me, but that boy is going to retire us both.” The prophecy had indeed come true.
But, for Iniesta, who will turn 34 soon, is it really time for him to bid adieu to his boyhood club? He has made 39 appearances for Barcelona this season and has never shown signs of slowing down. Iniesta is as sharp today as he was when the team stomped around Europe under Guardiola between 2008 and 2012. No part of his game has been found lacking, and the only thing he has perhaps lost in the last 10 years is the hair on his head.
Barcelona's Andres Iniesta during the press conference | Reuters
He did not have to go now, but Iniesta has always maintained that he would leave the club at the top of his game, not as a bit-part player on the bench. That, perhaps, is what sets him apart from another of European football's significant long-term departee—Arsene Wenger.
While the Arsenal manager has overstayed his welcome, Iniesta is still the captain of his team and the go-to person in that Barcelona midfield. He still supplies vital passes to Messi and brings a balance to the game when things turn against their favour. That may not have been enough to help Barcelona prevent an astonishing Champions League loss to AS Roma, but such is the cruelty of the cup competition.
Iniesta leaves Barcelona at a time when the club's academy, La Masia, is struggling to replenish the main team with worthy performers. Unless the club does something to reopen that tap, Iniesta, Sergio Busquets, Lionel Messi and Gerard Pique will be among the last few homegrown stars to regularly don the Barcelona shirt.
For Iniesta, the team always came first. He is not much of a goal scorer (57 in 669 appearances), but the fact that he has more trophies than his age speaks volumes of his accomplishments. When he, Xavi and Messi became the first trio from a single club to be the three shortlisted players for the Ballon d'Or, in 2010, he was only happy to concede to Messi. The threesome were unstoppable as a unit.
That Iniesta lived and played in the Messi era, only made things sweeter for him. "We have had unique magical moments.... There will never be a player like him," he said of the Argentine at the farewell press conference. Iniesta had the privilege to watch his hardwork in the background reap scintillating results in front of goal. “Everything is different with Andres,” Messi had said in Iniesta's biography The Artist: Being Iniesta. “The hardest thing to do in football is to make it look like everything is easy, effortless, and that is Andres.”
Everything Iniesta did on the field, he went about it with quiet efficiency. The one quality of Iniesta that stands apart from his trickery with the ball is his humility, as his teammates and rivals would testify. “You can't kick him,” Sergio Ramos once said. “It's Andres.”
Ramos, of Real Madrid, is a sworn enemy of Barcelona, but having played alongside Iniesta for the Spain national team, he certainly owes a lot to the man that won them the World Cup with an extra-time blinder in 2010.
That was Spain at its peak, winning two European Championships and a World Cup, during that same Guardiola period. And, after a horrifying group stage exit in 2014, Iniesta has an unfinished job as captain of the Spanish team—to restore the country's lost pride, in Russia, this June. It may be his last competition for La Roja.
When announcing his exit, he made it clear that he will not be able to bring himself to play against his club. Iniesta will hence leave Europe, with China the most likely destination. This may be the end for spectators and fans of European football, but for those in China, the saga continues. Iniesta's ability to conjure up magic consistently, even at this age, will stick out like a sore thumb. It is a result of a great measure of hard work and a greater measure of genius and mental stability.
Like the patriarch of Barcelona's beautiful football, Johan Cruyff said in his autobiography My Turn, “You can't be a top sportsman unless you're intelligent.... You play football with your head; you just use your legs to run.” It is his mind that will keep Iniesta going, until he calls time on his career. After that, the memories of Iniesta's play will be watched and re-watched for generations to come. And, just like classical music is relevant even today, the symphony of Iniesta will live on.