Andres Iniesta: One Day I Wish To Return To Barcelona - But I'm Not Done Winning Trophies In Japan

There is still a romance to the way Andres Iniesta enjoys a career that, if it were a video game, would have been completed several times over.

The 37-year-old has a trophy haul which reflects his status as one of the great midfielders of his generation - a World Cup and two European Championships with Spain, four Champions Leagues and countless other silverware with Barcelona.

But for the past three years the midfielder has called Japan his home, adding an Emperor's Cup and Japanese Super Cup with Vissel Kobe. He recently committed to a new deal that will keep him playing until he is almost 40.

Ask Iniesta how he continues to see the seemingly impossible pass, or wriggle out of the tightest situations, and he will take you back three decades and almost 7,000 miles to the instincts honed on the makeshift pitches of his hometown of Fuentealbilla.

"I consider myself an intuitive player who reads the game a few steps ahead," Iniesta tells BBC Sport. "In the position I play those are maybe my strengths and I try to exploit them as much as possible.

"There are things happening, things I am processing in my head. It's hard to describe them. They happen in an automatic way - I could have been learning them since I was young or through repetition.

"In football, if you start thinking you can go too slow."

Iniesta calls it an "essence". He scored the winner in the 2010 World Cup final and has produced mesmerising moments on the biggest stage, but the foundations are "stuff I used to do when I was 10 years old".

"Those essences come out in training or matches and I am just led by them," he explains. "When I was a kid I was basically playing in the streets of my hometown or in the school playing yard, and that environment helps you evolve.

"The connection to that environment and who you are and what type of person you are brings you to being a certain type of player.

"Nowadays kids are maybe practising football in more well-prepared fields. In those environments they need to try to adapt and gain some skills. Each environment helps you get better."

The gifted kid from the outskirts of Albacete grew up following Michael Laudrup and Pep Guardiola, and was given the chance to hone his raw talent in their shadows when he was exposed to Barcelona's revered La Masia youth academy at the age of 12, even if he did "cry buckets" on arrival.

He did not know then the influence the latter would have on his career.

Guardiola admired the understated up-and-coming playmaker when captain of the Catalan giants, famously suggesting fellow midfielder Xavi would retire him and "this lad Iniesta is going to retire us all", before as coach making Iniesta a pivotal part of his all-conquering side.

"Barcelona was like an exam every game and you had to pass that," says Iniesta. "That's the base and each time you have to adapt to the environment, mould yourself to the style that is required of you - but always keeping the essence.

"I've had different coaches. I started with Louis van Gaal and then there was Guardiola, Luis Enrique and Ernesto Valverde. All coaches teach you something and you can learn something from all coaches. Maybe there are times I played less, but that experience enriched me too.

"It would be hard to point out a coach who has influenced me the most and that's the same with the players I have played with and learned from. I have been in Barca and Spanish national teams in very good moments and I have been with the world's best players and I have learned from all of them."

Iniesta pauses for a moment to consider his answer and then continues: "It's not only what you have immediately around you, but an opponent, an opponent's system or style of play. I've always thought this motivation to learn is the motor to keep improving.

#AndresIniesta #Barcelona #Japan

Source: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/58646027

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