Sergio Busquets confirms he will leave Barcelona this summer after 15 years at the club

Sergio Busquets announced on Wednesday that he is leaving Barcelona after 15 seasons at the club.

He is now expected to join Al Hilal in Saudi Arabia, fueling speculation that Lionel Messi will head in the same direction this summer.

Busquets, whose contract expires at the end of the season, had been offered a new contract by Barcelona, ​​but signing it would mean a 70 per cent pay cut.

He delayed making a decision as Barcelona have worked in recent weeks to convince La Liga they can afford to re-sign Messi.

Busquets and Messi have an unwritten pact that they will play one more season together before they retire.

Busquets has won 30 trophies in 15 seasons with Barca, including three Champions Leagues

He is said to be ready for a reunion with former Barca teammate Lionel Messi in Saudi Arabia

Busquet’s decision to leave Barça, just 24 hours after Messi’s father Jorge was forced to deny a story his son had already signed for Al Hilal, points to the two players reuniting in Saudi Arabia this summer.

Busquets has a tax-free bid of around €15 million per season to join the club. Al Hilal is also interested in signing Jordi Alba, whose contract with Barcelona expires in 2024. Alba would have wanted to finish his contract so as not to lose the €17 million (£15 million) he is due to raise in his final season, but that would easily be compensated by the Saudi Arabian club.

Busquets’ decision to retire was also influenced by a desire to uphold the Spanish title at Camp Nou.

His decision marks the end of an era at the club. He was the last man left of Barcelona’s best-ever midfield first brought together under Pep Guardiola in the 2008-09 season.

Busquets was just 19 when he was called up to train with the first team for the first pre-season under Guardiola and he never looked back. Within a year he had a Champions League medal after Barcelona beat Manchester United in Rome. And in the second season, he really took off when Guardiola surprised many by allowing the club to sell Yaya Toure to Manchester City.

Barça fans wondered why the club sold such an asset to a European rival, but Guardiola’s madness had a certain purpose – he already knew that Busquets would be the club’s central midfielder for the next ten years.

‘Tenacious midfielder’ hardly does justice to the role he played. He was the organizer, the metronome, the ‘Captain Sensible’ of Barcelona and Spain who never lost his head.

And while his role, flanked by Iniesta and Xavi, was largely defensive as they left, he increasingly became the man to play the penetrating pass – a great ball, usually to Messi. His assists became as important as his interceptions.

Asked to define Busquets, Iniesta once told Mail Sport, “Intelligent, necessary, indispensable to any team, special. Leadership has always come naturally to him. He sees his role as serving the rest of the team. ‘Busi’ is a special person, that’s why we all love him.’

Messi and Busquets were part of a Barca squad considered one of the greatest in history

Busquets was once described as “intelligent” and “special” by former teammate Andres Iniesta

He was professional down to the last detail. When he contracted Covid at the start of the last European Championship – his last international tournament – he was sent home with a GPS vest and a training schedule drawn up by Spanish fitness coach Rafael Pol and stuck to it so diligently that according to the data from the vest, he could only have come back for Spain’s second group stage match if coach Luis Enrique erred on the side of caution and saved him for Spain’s final group stage match.

Vicente del Bosque, Busquet’s first Spanish manager, famously said that if he could reincarnate as a player, it would be Busquets. The same question was put to Busquets and he chose Guardiola.

When he’s done making a fortune in Saudi Arabia, all eyes will be on him to see if he follows Guardiola and Xavi in ​​management. “It’s not easy, but I want to try,” he said in the past.

Busquets will start for Barcelona on Sunday in what will now be his last Catalan derby against Espanyol. If Barça wins the match, Busquets will have his ninth league title – a final trophy that also saw him win three Champions Leagues, a World Cup and a European Championship.