Gerard Piqué: the man who promoted the most extravagant world title won by Peru retires

Gerard Piqué. He appeared next to Tarzán Puyol in the team photo and in the Panini. There, the figurine 566 of the other family album that he looks at with nostalgia, showed him as a bearded wonder of 192 centimeters, 85 kilos and only 23 years old. A promise. At that age and with that physique you can be a hundred things -successful executive, young family man, Calvin Klein model-, but he, a back center player raised in La Masía, chose the path destined for very few: becoming world champion with selecting him. In the album that I have here by my side, today my son’s collection, it is written that Gerard Piqué was above all that, before all this that the planet says about him. Its football importance is that, next to a notable generation of Spaniards whose surnames remained engraved, like tattoos -Cesc Fábregas, Andrés Iniestas, Iker Casillas, Niño Torres-, and for that reason it has been a trend for hours, again, in sports newspapers. Piqué announces his retirement from football!!headlines Brand, without caring about the rules of spelling. “Legend”Mundo Deportivo tweets, speechless. “The photo speaks for itself”puts the official site of the World Cup in Spanish at the bottom of the page, with Piqué kneeling kissing the trophy.

He is 35 years old. At 35 more recently he could be called old. All that’s left for him to live for.

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Thirty titles with Barcelona, ​​his club as a child despite being called the enemy’s stadium -Piqué Bernabéu-, which spanned 8 Leagues, 3 Champions Leagues, 6 Spanish Super Cups, 3 European Super Cups, 3 Club World Cups and 7 Copas del Rey, do not even open the debate about its importance in the so-called Golden Age of Barza. He trained with Ronaldinho, Henry, Xavi, Deco, Figo, Suárez, Neymar and Messi. He surely ate terrible huachas. His strength was the advance and his powerful aerial game, because for the carts he had Puyol. “He’s an example of a captain, people have to know that,” said Xavi recently, who met him when he wasn’t using Prestobarba, in a fair description that summed up what his teammates always say about him, but also as a kind of shield before the wave of criticism, low blows and headlines in the pink press of his country after the breakup of his relationship with the wonderful Colombian performer and star Shakira. The separation, the details, the infidelity, the threads of the pillows, were a martyrdom for both careers in recent weeks. Nearly 30,900,000 results (in 0.81 seconds) appear when one places “Piqué” and “Shakira” in the Google search engine. Much.

“You, culés, have given me everything, and now that the dreams of that child have come true, I want to tell you that it is time to close this circle. I have always said that after Barça there would be no other team, and that is how it will be. This Saturday will be my last game at the Camp Nou”, said the Catalan defender in the clip on his social networks, where he announces his retirement from football at the age of 35. “Many have been talking about me for weeks and months and until now I haven’t said anything, but now I want to be the one to talk to you about myself,” he insisted. Within an hour, the video had 4.5M views. This is how emotions are measured today, as if they were a playlist.

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Piqué leaves, he becomes a millionaire ex-soccer player with dreams of being president of Barcelona and, seen from miles away, his influence in Peru is more than remarkable: a world title. In October 2021, the big trend on Twitch was the World of Balloons Organized by the famous streamer Ibai Llanos and the Spaniard Gerard Piqué, two social media freaks who got together to make a ruckus. “It may be bullshit,” said the defender about the discussion around the world: why does it move us so much to play in the living room of the house with a balloon with the sole objective of not falling? The answer may be the simplicity of things. In innocence. The one that remains Ibai and Piqué saw a business there: representatives of 32 national teams and sports and Internet personalities signed up. As expected, there was a Peruvian in this tournament. An enthusiastic boy named Francesco de la Cruz, 18 years old, with a lot of free time and an essential requirement today: megabytes on the cell phone. “I have missed classes to come,” he said on the broadcast in the final, after beating Jan Spieb, the representative of Germany. And we celebrate that flirtatious laziness.

We don’t conquer the Moon because we don’t want to. And although Piqué has more serious matters to resolve, we owe him this small, brief joy.