2023-05-25 07:00:48
His figure, tiny and fast, rode through the Camp Nou meadow for more than a decade. He was a cheating left-back. He wore defense clothes but was always, in reality, a striker. Perhaps the one who best understood Messi’s football, with whom he connected in such a way that they didn’t need me to look at each other. Everything flowed. But Balde arrived and the house that belonged to Alba no longer belonged to him. He leaves, like Piqué and Busquets before, so as not to dirty his story with Barça.
Profitable signing: 14 million and 11 years at the Camp Nou
I was 23 years old. It was when Andoni Zubizarreta, sports director of Barça in the presidency of Sandro Rosell, chose the side of Valencia. Player who was rejected in his day at the Barca youth academy, for which he had to go find his life (Cornellà, Valencia, who loaned him out to Nàstic de Tarragona, and return to Mestalla) before returning to the Camp Nou through the front door .
He paid the club 14 million for a deep defender in what has been one of the most profitable signings of the last decade. His explosion in the Spain that won Euro 2012 accelerated his arrival at Barça, which he did not want to wait for the year of his remaining contract with Valencia.
He joined the team with Tito Vilanova, just after the departure of Pep Guardiola, who had taken a sabbatical in the United States. And he established himself in ownership as soon as he landed, forming a defense that had Valdés in goal, escorted by Alves on the right wing and Alba on the left, with the center-back pair formed by Piqué and Puyol in the center, also including mascherano.
From there no one moved him anymore, due to many left-backs who were parading, almost all from the bench, in the last decade.
Singular chemistry with Messi
He took over the left wing with authority, weaving spectacular chemistry with Messi. He became his preferred partner because his football hit first time. They understood each other by sight. Jordi reached the end line and without looking back he knew that Leo’s figure was looming patiently waiting for his precise pass.
Speed and calm merged over and over again. “What I had with Leo was something special. He was the best with whom I understood myself,” the winger confessed. The play was repeated over and over again. Match after match. But there was no antidote for it.
It was extreme. And he never ceased to be, although his evolution as a footballer was delaying him to the position of left back. But that past never left him to the point of becoming a deep winger, who lived more in his own area than in his own.
Although that cost him, for example, defensive errors, especially in inattention with the aerial balls that fell behind him. But he made up for everything later with that winger’s soul that made him gallop endlessly down the left wing of the Camp Nou, which had become his home for more than a decade.
He gained more and more prominence in the dressing room, a good friend as he always was of Iniesta, Xavi, Busquets and, of course, Messi. In other words, the hard core. The ‘sacred cows’ that dominated the coexistence, acquiring more and more power, integrated, finally, until Piqué in the group of captains.
His voice had more and more weight in the group, which also caused reluctance in the board of directors, especially that of Josep Maria Bartomeu (January 2014-October 2020). “It is strange for me not to hear from the club about my renewal,” the winger came to say. He signed in 2019 for five years. But he will not serve his fifth and last year because he is leaving earlier. “It is the right time,” he argued to justify your decision to leave.
He is the penultimate player from the starting eleven who won the last Barça Champions League to leave the club. It only remains now, therefore, Ter Stegen. The rest belong to the past. There, in Berlin, and with Luis Enrique, a coach with whom he had problems, although they later reconciled, especially in the Spanish team, the side trodden the top.
He kissed his first and only European Cup being the capital at Barça of the Messi-Suárez-Neymar trident, balancing the left side where the Brazilian star moved. Alba could not intuit then that she would never again enjoy that European recognition.
In Berlin-2015 Alba discovered paradise. And four years later he witnessed the decline at Anfield, where he felt responsible for that dramatic defeat (4-0), which thwarted Valverde and Messi’s move to the final for Barça, who wasted a comfortable 3-0 win at Camp Nou. At the break, and still at 1-0, a goal scored by Origi, the defender broke down in tears. He felt he had missed Liverpool’s goal, as footage from the ‘Matchday’ documentary captured.
The team, and the coach, were silent when they saw their broken partner. He had his face covered by a blue towel, trying to be comforted by Ricard Pruna, the doctor. But there was no comfort. And the worst was yet to come.
Anfield anticipated chaos for Barça in Europe. A team that went from bad to worse. Rome was already a warning. But the worst was yet to come with that 2-8 win for Bayern Munich in Lisbon that buried, and now forever, the image of that winning team.
Alba, as one of the leaders of the dressing room, received criticism. Even from within the club, considering that his salary was excessive. “A lot of lies are said about me. I can’t go out and deny everything. Of 10 news about Jordi Alba, 10 are bad, in the end it’s normal for people to think badly. I’m here to show my face”, he affirmed.
“More has been said about the four captains than about the rest. It is time to put up with everything ”, Alba maintained in the turbulent times in which he was questioned. Bartomeu’s final years. Initial years of Laporta in his second term. Criticism before the renewal of it. Criticism after his renewal, which placed him in the ranks of the highest paid players in the squad.
“I am of an age, nothing is going to surprise me. But I can’t stand lies or things being leaked. Nor are doubts generated towards me. I accept having played badly and I am the first to admit it. But when lies are told, I don’t I put up with it. I can’t stand them,” Alba exclaimed when she was asked to lower her salary in times of pandemic. She agreed to defer it.
Bucket and “it’s best to step aside”
Last summer, Barça already wanted to do without the defender. He tried, but without success, a loan to Inter. Alba was left assuming that his leading role, the one he had had in the last decade, would disappear. But he didn’t imagine that much. The irruption of Balde precipitated the events. “I have had a more secondary role, I have known myself more. I have helped young people a lot,” he confessed at his farewell.
Xavi also already let him know that it would get worse next season. The club also needed to release his file because he would be the best paid in the squad, something unassumable for a substitute. “I’ve always wanted to stay, but the years go by…”, stated the left-back.
He had a contract, the one signed by Bartomeu in the midst of an endless controversy, until 2024. But Alba made the decision to leave. “The best thing is to take a step to the side. It has not been an easy decision, but I leave happy and calm. From my feeling culé, it is the best”, sentenced the boy who did not want in the team of his life. But he ended up winning.
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