Lionel Messi has paid tribute to his former Barcelona teammate Andrès Iniesta after the World Cup-winner retired from professional football at the age of 40.
Spain legend Iniesta announced his retirement at a special event in Barcelona on Tuesday, and Messi, another winner of football’s greatest prize, wrote a note to his teammate on Instagram.
“One of the teammates with the most magic and with whom I enjoyed playing the most,” Messi said. “Football will miss you and so will we.”
As a player Iniesta transcended rivalries in Spain, receiving standing ovations at the majority of grounds in the country, and that remained the case as he retired, with Real Madrid and Espanyol both represented at the event through Emilio ButragueÒo and Joan Capdevila.
After looking back over his career, which started at Albacete and took off in BarÁa, Vissel Kobe, Emirates and the Spanish national team, Iniesta confirmed he now plans to take his coaching badges and would like to return to BarÁa in some capacity one day.
“I would like to return to BarÁa at some point in my life,” he added. “I think that people that have had so much experience and influence at this club have to be here, as long as they can contribute.
“I would be delighted to come back if there’s a role I feel I can offer as much in as I did as a player. What type of coach would I be? I don’t know if I will be or not, but that is the intention.”
After joining BarÁa’s academy aged 12 in 1996, initially living at La Masia, Iniesta went on to make 54 appearances for the club’s B team before breaking into the senior side in 2002.
“It will be difficult to repeat those years in terms of titles, because it was brutal,” Iniesta said. “But in football and in life nothing is impossible.
“Will it be very difficult? For sure, but not impossible. We always like to compare things, but what happened in past doesn’t mean what comes next has to be worse.”
He eventually left BarÁa in 2018 after making almost 700 appearances and winning 32 trophies with the club.-ESPN