A smile, shiny eyes and sadness in his voice. One of the best football players in history ended his career – Other – Football

Spanish football midfielder Andres Iniesta ended his playing career at the age of 40. He announced his retirement from the sport through an emotional video on the social network, in which coaches Pep Guardiola, Vicente del Bosque and Luis Enrique appeared, among others.

Together with Lionel Messi and Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta was one of the leaders in one of the most successful periods in Barcelona’s history.

He added the video along with the caption: “The game goes on”, while the video features the symbolic date of October 8, which is supposed to be the official day of the end of his career, and refers to Iniesta’s most frequent shirt number. Iniesta alternates between smiling in the video, later talking with shiny eyes, in which tears also appeared.

“You know who he reminds me of? It reminds me of kids who play soccer in the street and their mothers have to call them home after dark. That’s Andres Iniesta. He is 40 years old and he is thinking about whether he should still play,” said his former teammate Enrique, the current coach of Paris Saint-Germain, in a farewell video addressed to Iniesta.

Iniesta has been a free agent since the summer. In the past season, he worked for the Emirates team in the United Arab Emirates, before that he played for five seasons in Japan’s Vissel Kobe. He experienced his most famous years in his native Barcelona, ​​where he formed an iconic midfield duo with Xavi Hernandez.

Between 2002 and 2018, he played 674 matches for the “Blaugranas” and won 32 trophies with the Catalans, including nine league titles, six Spanish Cups, as well as four Champions League triumphs.

He also has 131 starts in the jersey of the national team, with which he won three major tournaments in a row. With “La Furia Roja”, he triumphed at the European Championship 2008 and 2012 and scored the winning goal in the final of the World Cup 2010 against the Netherlands (1:0 pp).

Iniesta is to announce what he plans to do in the future. According to the Spanish newspaper Marca, he will continue to focus on football, probably at the coaching level. In the past, he did not hide his interest in returning to Barcelona, ​​which was coached by his former teammate Xavi until the summer.