BARCELONA – Sergio Busquets, starter in the line-up arranged by Ronald Koeman against Granada, will play his 600th official game against Barcelona this Saturday and will become the fourth footballer, after Xavi (767 games), Lionel Messi (who will be 752 on Saturday) and Andrés Iniesta (674).
Member of an already legendary era, the first six to be classified on the list were or are companions of Busquets, as the fifth is Carles Puyol (593 games) and the sixth is Gerard Piqué (553), the eighth is Víctor Valdés with 535 games.
The 32-year-old Catalan midfielder, who was under contract with the club Barça until June 2023, made his debut on September 11, 2008 in the first team led by Pep Guardiola, with whom he was already indisputable in the subsidiary, on September 11, 2008 in a contest. Competition against Racing Santander at Camp Nou, which ended in a draw (1-1) and from which he secured a place in the coach’s plans, gradually stealing the spotlight from Yaya Toure until the Ivorian decided to leave the club in the summer of 2010 to join Manchester City.
Son of Carlos Busquets, who was the Barça goalkeeper between 1989 and 1998, Sergio joined the Barça club as a youth in 2005 and was promoted until May 2007. Frank Rijkaard gave him the opportunity to make his debut with the first team in the Catalunya Cup , although the following season, still 19 years old, he spent it at Barça B, trained by Guardiola and turned into one of the main parts of the subsidiary that rose to 2nd Division B.
In this way, Pep decided to take him to the first team preseason in the summer of 2008 and although the presence of Xavi, Iniesta, Touré, Seidou Keita and Hleb implied that he would have a testimonial, the coach gave him the alternative in the second League game and from there to the end of the season, which ended with the triplet, he has already played 41 games, including 31 as a starter, that catapulted him to the plane.
Busquets was Guardiola’s great bet alongside Pedro of Piqué, debuted with the Spanish team in April 2009 and became indisputable of the next campaign, both in the Barça club and the national team, being the protagonist of the best successes in history both for Barça as for the Spanish team.
Since then, Sergio Busquets has won a total of 31 Barça championships: three Champions League titles, eight in the League, three Club World Cups, three European Super Cups, six in the Copa del Rey and eight in the Spanish Super Cup. Besides the 2010 World Cup and the Eurocup 2012 with the Spanish team.