Gerard Piqué

The Cup title
"We needed it. The team deserved it. We have been playing well, with good results. Playing football that we recognise more. In the cup we suffered a lot throughout the competition. The final was a relief, a game that went very well for us".

A title that gives them energy
"Yes, we're depending on ourselves and the cup has given us extra motivation, to see that we're doing well. At Barça you are always obliged to win something. I think we needed it. Now you're calmer because you've done part of the work. Even if it's true that La Liga and the Champions League are different types of competitions".

He comes from a wealthy family
"My family is upper middle class. I have never lacked anything. I will be grateful for it all my life. From there, I joined Barça when I was 10 years old. That's where I found a different reality. At school you have classmates with lives similar to yours. Football is born in the street, it lives in the street. It opens up a new world for you. It's great for your mind, you see that there is another profile of people different from you. Different ways of looking at life. I have always valued it a lot. From the age of 10 to 17, when I went to United. People I wouldn't have crossed paths with in the street and I'm proud that they are part of my life".

Strangeness?
"Football is a universal language and you understand each other immediately. It doesn't matter the club. Creating experiences with people who are different from you is good for you. It should be compulsory for children to play team sports. So they can see that there are other worlds, other cultures. Everything you experience, you share, it helps you to think as a team. It's good for everything. Then it's super healthy, of course. Being part of a team is basic".

Culé passion
"It comes to me from a very young age. The day I was born I became a member of Barça. It's a constant, a monotheme in my family. Going to the Camp Nou every time they play at home. I swallow football, basketball, all sports. Sucking up to all this means that when I joined Barça at the age of 10, I lived it like a dream. But without pressure".

Did your grandfather put you up to it?
"It's easy to think that. You have to fight for it. It was good for me. You unconsciously have more pressure and try to prove them wrong."

He took a blow to the head as a baby
"A house under construction, a railing that wasn't there, the ball falls, I go after it.... I was 18 months old. I spent a few days in hospital.

Did he make a physical difference?
"I was very tall and very thin, but I don't remember. I remember I played as a right winger in the trial and scored two goals. They started to put me in a lower position"

Barça method
"Yes, we had it from an early age. Pass and control. Pass and control. It doesn't seem like it, but you pick up the exquisiteness. It sounds silly, but it makes a difference. When you get to the professional level, that's what differentiates a good player from a top player. It's dedicating hours and time to it. I do it with my kids.

Players who continue "There is a natural selection. It's cruel. Every year there's a list of you stay and you go. A dream that fades away. I never saw it as the end of the world. Until I go to Manchester, I don't think about being a professional".

Are you very playful?
"I play it down and I'm quite optimistic. I'm a realist-optimist and my wife is a realist-pessimist. I like to be optimistic. There are a lot of things you don't know if they will happen, but if you already think you're going to make it, I think you have more options.

He met Messi as a child
"He was special as a child. You could see it. He had the ball glued to him. You couldn't get it out of him. They told us not to go in hard because he was small, but we couldn't even if we wanted to. You couldn't catch him. He was a natural."

When did he start thinking about becoming a professional?
"When I left Barça. When I was 17 years old, my agent suggested the possibility. At that time it was very difficult. At that time, for whatever reason, it was more difficult. I was fine here. They offer you money, but it wasn't important. They offer you to train with the first team. Here I asked for three times less to stay, but they said no. I realised that at Barça. I realised that at Barça these things were not a priority. It was a challenge to leave, to jump into the pool. I didn't think much about it. When I saw that things weren't going well with Barça, I made up my mind. My mother had a hard time. I had a hard time when I got there. When you're 17 you don't think about the weather or the food. You think about Manchester United and you don't think about what the city is like, that you're not going to see your friends or your family."

Adaptation
"It was very hard. The first year you have to go and live with a family. We went to a real English family. The first day, hot lemon pie.... It was difficult. You're learning, you spend a lot of time alone. You're maturing.

Van Gaal went to eat at his home
"My grandfather was a Barca directive and he brought Van Gaal for dinner. I was 11 or 12 years old. I wore my shirt, and less than six years later he was still at Barça and I was still at Barça. Before greeting me, he gives me a push and throws me to the ground... "You're not strong enough to be a defender". I was thinking that I should have been stronger".

Being strong
"In England I learned. I arrived being exquisite with the ball, but I would say I was soft. There I learned to be tough. I learned a lot in my head, to live through difficult moments alone. I lived through a time when they had the best centre-back pairing in Europe. I went to Zaragoza for a year and that's when I realised that I was going to make a living out of this. That's when I realised that I could compete with the big teams and it comforted me".

The dressing room in England
"It's different in terms of humour. There is still a lot more respect for the veterans. There was Giggs, Keane, Scholes, the Nevilles.... And then Ferguson, who was a figure who wasn't a manager, but the controller of the whole club. I thought of myself as a kid. I had a mobile phone in the dressing room. I hung the phone on my trousers and it started vibrating, not ringing. Keane started shouting about whose phone it was. He gave me a hell of a telling off. Now everyone is on their mobile phones. It was a different concept.

Back to Barça
"When they call me, I think that if I don't play at United, how am I going to play at Barcelona. I fitted in as the fourth centre-back after Puyol, Márquez and Cáceres. I arrived with no expectations, just to enjoy coming home.

Good times
"Nobody expected it to go so well. I think it helped that there was a base of home-grown players. There was a lot of desire because they had been eating shit for years. And we also had hungry youngsters coming in, wanting to be something in this world. That was combined with a coach like Pep Guardiola, who is a home-grown genius. It was an unexpected cocktail. If there is such a thing as perfection in the world of football, we came close to it".

Two Champions League titles in a row
"It was closing the circle. We beat the club in the final where I couldn't make my mark. In Roma we played great football. The 2-6, the whole season. Nobody expected it.

The national team.
"It came quickly. Vicente called me and I enjoyed it a lot. Except for a very short period, when there was that Barça-Madrid confrontation and it affected the national team. I knew everyone because I was in the youth teams. I always felt like I was going to my second home. The atmosphere was very healthy. There were many of us who understood football in the same way. And we won titles, which takes you to another level. Winning the World Cup at the age of 23 after the Sextete for me was just one more, but it was really something historic. You enter that wheel, so beastly, so winning, that it seems normal. When you stop winning, you realise.

Vital moment
"I thought I was going at 300 per hour in life. Everything I set out to do in life, I did well. I've slowed down a bit now. In Pep's last year I saw that I could do well. That last year, Pep, who always asks for the maximum, I had just met my wife. Maybe I didn't have it in my head to give everything, to sacrifice everything. I gave enough to play, but he wanted more. I suffered that last year".

Managers
-"Tito was very approachable, very natural. It was as if he wasn't from the world of football, he was very approachable. He had had several of us when we were kids. We had a year of 100 points. He was absent due to illness, but he was always very present.

-"Tata is something completely different. He comes from another culture. We adapted little by little. It's been a year since we lost the Cup final, LaLiga on the last day. A year in which you are unlucky. He was a manager who was undervalued because we didn't win anything. He was a good person, approachable and a good professional."

-"Luis Enrique arrives and revolutionises everything. He put in three more gears and what was looking to be a fiasco ends up being a year of the Treble. A situation that you don't understand. In January we were almost out of everything, with the little problem that Leo and Luis had. The team and the manager gave it a 180º and we started to win and gain confidence. You stand up and win the treble. With the MSN, I haven't seen anything like it. We were also very solid at the back."

-"Then came Valverde, a very calm person, very approachable. He knew how to coexist very well with players who have won a lot. I think he gets a lot out of the team. Maybe we don't play the most eye-catching game in the world. We've had the setbacks in the Champions League. It makes you regret it because I think we did a very good job, but the storm clouds of Rome and Liverpool cloud the other."

-"Setién is the hardest moment in my time at Barça. I remember it being very difficult for many reasons. He tries to do what he can, but it doesn't work. Things as they are. He tries to impose his style of play, his character, but there is no connection, it doesn't flow and the energy is not good. The result against Bayern is very hard and makes you think about things. You think about leaving, but you think you can't leave with 2-8"."

His words after the 2-8 defeat
"It's very difficult when you are bugged and something like 2-8 has just happened. People are very angry. Football is like politics, very passionate. People want you to self-destruct and they want honesty. I'm surprised how insincere politicians are. You have to always say what you think, without thinking about whether it's good or bad for you. You have to empathise with the fans who are culé and the only thing they want in the world is for Barça to win. I go there to transmit my feelings at that moment, without filters, to the Culés who are waiting. You can't look for solutions or excuses at that moment. I chose to be myself. I said that the castle had fallen and it was time to rebuild it.

Koeman
-"I always believe that in bad times or in a misfortune, there are opportunities. It has been proven. The club came from where it came from and that has brought great news of players who, being very young, have given their best".

-"He has been brave to put them in and he has had the vision. Instead of having a short term vision, of seeing the tree, he has seen the forest. Pedri, Araujo, Ansu, Frenkie, Ilaix. There are very young people who have gained a lot of experience in moments that were not easy. They've been tanned very quickly. This experience is priceless. To have players with 40 first team appearances in the Barça shirt at this age is very valuable.

Laporta
"Another brave man. He has imbued us with that happiness, that optimism. It was needed. It's going well, although there is a lot to change".

European Super League
"If I put myself in the shoes of the president of Barça, which is what Laporta must do, he finds himself in a situation that he has inherited, a very bad economic situation. He will make the best decision for the club. At the moment, Barça is the founder of the Superliga. I think this decision has a very important explanation in the economic situation of the club. If I look at it from the player's point of view, a global view, I don't think it is positive in the long term for the world of football. The fact that the big brands are coming together to compete, even though there are five clubs invited. They say they will stay in the national leagues and keep competing. When the Champions League is bringing in 3.5 billion euros and they say the Super League will bring in three times as much. I can't do the maths. If you talk to the TV rights experts, they tell you that the market is not there. At the beginning they say that they want to stay in the leagues. The years will go by and behind this there are investment funds, banking companies. When the time comes that there are losses, they will decide to put the matches on weekends. And we will not know why, but we will find a competition model of Wednesday and Saturday. That is my vision. That will take the revenue from the leagues. And that's where you get the numbers. You're wrecking the whole system to get it. Do we want this for football? Sevilla, Valencia, Everton, Leicester, Napoli to disappear? This is where it's going. If we want it to be that, go ahead, but we have to be aware of it. It's an American model, which has these things and its good things. What is clear is that the model has to change. We have to find a balance in which the big ones can coexist with the not so big ones. In La Liga and in UEFA they should have more weight than a team of a lower category. Equally more votes, more income. But to break with everything, to break the ecosystem... you take away jobs" .

The solution
"What is happening is a reflection of society. It is pure and simple capitalism. There is no perfect model. We have to look for the most balanced model".

Load of matches
"The calendar, as it is now, is a Frankenstein. They put the competitions in there. The competitions want more matches and more revenue. They've reached a point where the cow has had enough.

The youngsters
"It is very important. Young people, 15-year-olds, consume football in a different way. At that time there was only football. You were waiting to consume everything. Right now it competes with everything that's on the net and it's content that they like a lot. It's difficult for them to keep them focused for 90 minutes. We have to change the way, maybe small things in sport. We can't stay static because if we don't, there will come a time when they will stop liking football".

Presiding Barça "I am lucky, because of my position, to see how presidents move. I really like to see it. I don't know if I'll get involved. If I do, I'll go all in, to have a positive impact for the club of my life. If I do, I'll go all in. A president has to be a very solid figure, that people have a lot of trust in him and he has a word. He has to have a direction. Without that structure, if the hierarchies are not maintained, what happens happens is what happens. Clubs collapse and have to rebuild themselves".

Presiding Andorra
"I have experienced many strange things. As captain of Barça, I defended certain interests in the salary reduction. That same day I had a meeting with the captains of Andorra for the same thing but on the club's side. That's when you realise that you have to be fair. If you're not, it ends up backfiring".

Which side do you take?
"I took both. I've been privileged and I've realised that. I've enjoyed it. There are people who are and don't enjoy it".

He gets into fights
"I get into those I'm informed about. People whistled at me for defending the right to vote in the situation in Catalonia. I tried to be fair to myself. If I had not defended it, I would feel bad about myself. It was me with my thoughts and the way I felt. People started to whistle at me and, instead of taking it badly, I took it as a motivation to play as well as I could. To show that despite the whistles, I deserved to be there because I was the best or one of the two best centre-backs in Spain.

What do you think of Messi's future?
"I can't tell you what's going to happen with him. I think in the last few months he's looked happy and content. That's important because he has an impact on the team because he's the captain and he influences the whole team. The team is doing very well and a good part of that is because of him. I would try to take it one day at a time and enjoy it as much as possible. Those of us who have been with him for a long time are going to support him whatever he decides. He has given us so much... Maybe he is the best in history. I can only thank him, as I have told him personally many times. There are moments that the body can't give forever. We will try to keep him with us as long as possible".