“Barça would be a huge challenge”

Before returning to Dubai, Andres Iniesta attended once again to Sports Worldwithout a ‘no’ since he was a child, with emotion still running high after the event with more than 500 people in which he officially announced his retirement from football. The boy who arrived at 12 years old The Masia from Sourcealbilla left the Barça in 2018 and now, at 40 years old, and with two foreign experiences in the Vissel Kobe Japanese and the Emirates Club of United Arab Emirates, Hang up your boots. He’s already looking at the benches.

The announcement of the withdrawal is now behind us. How do you feel?

Waiting for the next steps and now, with all the excitement of these days, happy.

You are already a former player. Does it sound strange? Evil? How are you doing?

I try not to think about it because of what it means but the process that has been done has been this. Now I no longer think as a player but I do think about other things.

He spoke of the film of his life as a story. How would you title this story of almost 30 years of football fulfilling a dream?

I would say it has been wonderful. If you had told me a few years ago I wouldn’t have thought it so beautiful, special or meaningful.

In the photo session that illustrates this interview, he posed with the old Masia and the works of the Spotify Camp Nou. What do you think about when you see that mix of where it all started and the future that hopefully is returning to Barça?

They are symbolic things that I have grown up with. Every day being at La Masia I had the stadium in front of me and when you look back you see the whole film and the whole journey. And what I said: Barça changed my life, it is my home and I don’t know if I will ever be able to return but that excitement for what it represents will always be there.

“This story has been wonderful. If you had told it to me a few years earlier I would not have thought it so beautiful”

What will you miss because you are a footballer?

I will miss everything, being in a stadium with people, training and playing. Because the happiest thing that has made me is playing soccer. Everything else will not be that happiness but it does not have to be less. It will be different. We will try to find that path that leads us to remain excited about things.

In that goal of trying to be a coach to continue winning, what will the process be? Will you start doing the FIFA coaching course in Dubai?

The idea when we left Japan for the Emirates, in addition to being closer to Spain, was that: to start the coaching course there. Also here in Spain, next summer, it opens too. I can do both but being in Asia it would only work for Asia. The part of doing it in Spain is what works for Europe and I will try to do both things.

Have you set a minimum time to reach a First Division or an elite bench?

No, I haven’t thought about such important things yet. It’s about starting this process, learning and visualizing and thinking about things, but I’m not sure what I’m going to do two years from now or three years from now. Not at all.

In the distant future, if you could come to Barça as a coach, you know that it is an electric chair through which coaches with a lot of legend behind them have passed and have come out scalded. Is that scary?

It is an incredible challenge for any coach and for technicians who have been players here and have had a history behind them, even more so. It is a major challenge. But when you think as a coach you always try to be prepared for anything.

What are your references as a coach? Would you take something from each one?

No to the first question and yes to the second. In the end, directly or indirectly, I have learned from everyone I have had with day-to-day life and any way of managing a group. Now I am only focused on learning, seeing, studying, speaking and from there, seeing. I can’t answer what my coaching model is because I don’t have it nor have I stopped to think about it.

“A coach today has to surround himself with powerful people who he feels can help him”

Furthermore, football evolves. Van Gaal is not the same when you debuted as other more current technicians. Now management and psychology are also imposed in addition to the tactical issue.

Yes, football has evolved but it has learned things from everyone. In the end one has to be oneself.

What did he mean that he will be a coach with an Iniesta profile on and off the field?

I wanted to say that what I have experienced, what I have felt and the way I try to play is what I have practiced and visualized my entire life. With the Iniesta profile I mean that each one is unique in their essence. We’ll see, but I’m reluctant to talk about a coach when I haven’t even started. There are hopes and beautiful things that could happen but time will tell.

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What should a coach have today?

Mainly, the knowledge of what you want to do and transmit. You have to know what a locker room is and many aspects. And above all, surround yourself with powerful people who you feel can help you.

Do you think you suffer more as a coach than as a player?

Yes, yes. Clear. Compared to the footballer, I suppose much more because the footballer is one who thinks about himself and how to make others better. But the coach has to think about a lot.