'I would have liked to have played until 90'

Andrés Iniesta brings curtain down on his glorious playing career after more than 1,000 matches across 22 years.

- Sid Lowe

'It has been like a story that starts on the playground in Fuentealbilla," Andrés Iniesta said, and now this was The End.

In the auditorium in Barcelona's old port where he had just announced his retirement yesterday, there was a lot of applause, some tears and a request, delivered softly, like everything he says. Could his family come down, Iniesta asked, shielding his eyes from the spotlight? And could that picture go back up? As they made for the stairs, on the screen above he appeared again, the way he was.

A boy, about four, in red jumper and blue dungarees, foot on the ball.

For that boy, Iniesta said, one night in Belgium would have been enough, but there were 1,015 more of them, across 22 years. They were the best nights of his life and the lives of many others too, which is what gave all of it meaning. He was 18 when he played his first professional game, a 1-0 win in Bruges at the end of October 2002.

He was 40 when he played his last, a 3-2 defeat in Sharjah in June 2024.

Iniesta had retreated from the elite and everything that entails, the pressure and the exposure, six years before because he wanted to leave at the right time. That last waltz in the 2018 Copa del Rey final had been the perfect way to leave the stage; his last walk, barefoot across the Camp Nou pitch with the lights out and the stands empty, the perfect private farewell. "I would have liked to have retired there but at Barcelona you need to give 300% and that wasn't possible," he said here. He went instead to Kobe, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates. Now he confirmed that he will not play again, anywhere.

"I never thought I would see this day," he said, or tried to say at the very start of an event organised to say goodbye, 500 people there for his departure. His voice was cracking, but it is time to let go.

There will be time to come back.