He closed the most important stage of his life. He kept hundreds of games, dozens of titles and countless emotions locked in the drawer of memories. With tears in his eyes, making an impossible effort to remain calm, Gerard Piqué said goodbye to professional football and Barça in November with a heartfelt speech on the Camp Nou pitch.
This Sunday, the ex-soccer player, now a full-time businessman, triumphantly returned to the Barcelona pitch for the first time. He left behind the vulnerable image that the culé parish saw in his goodbye, unique in his career as a footballer, and recovered the impudence that has always characterized him to welcome the final four of the Kings League, the successful idea embodied by the ex-central with his company Kosmos that starts from soccer but seeks, above all, entertainment with the support of well-known streamers, former soccer players and radical regulations.
“Good afternoon, Camp Nou”, Piqué opened the evening after arriving in Hollywood by helicopter with the presidents of the classified clubs: Perxitaa (Los Troncos), TheGrefg (Saiyans), Adri Contreras (El Barrio) and Juan Guarnizo (Annihiladores). ). The temple of Barça, a place of worship for football in old Europe, made an exception to open its doors to a project that started as an experiment and whose first edition ended gloriously in front of 92,522 spectators and more than two million on the networks. The icing on the cake was the championship title for El Barrio, but the day was full of lights and colors in the Super Bowl style.
American sport, devoted to spectacle, has been a mirror for this proposal that has captured the restless minds of young people. The Camp Nou used to a calm and gray-haired public, now also surrendered to tourists, the Kings League caused the old stadium to be a hive of teenagers wanting to cheer and chant names, including Messi before Joan’s gaze Laporta from a box that he shared with the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, and other politicians such as the mayors of Barcelona Xavier Trias and Ernest Maragall. It was not the only reference to the Barça past, since Neymar was also announced as president of a club in the Brazilian edition. Finally, there were regular chants from the Blaugrana fans.
The event was enlivened with music and by the presidents of the clubs, also those not classified as Ibai, Agüero or Gerard Romero. The rappers Skone, Chuty, Gazir and Bnet and later the singers Lali and Tiago PZK put the notes of a show that despite its great packaging had, in the end, the same protagonists of a traditional match: the soccer players.
While the stands enjoyed, the procession went inside for the players in the bowels of the stadium, most of them footballers also from regional teams from Catalonia. Playing in a full Camp Nou only appeared in his dreams. “It’s the best environment in the world,” Piqué recalled his feelings in what was his garden, his measurements adapted to football 7. The football that was seen, logically less carat than usual at the Camp Nou, did not disappoint in emotion and dynamism, at least in the semifinals.
The duel between Los Troncos and Aniquiladores had flashes of quality and great goals, especially that of Dorkis with a shot to the squad that forced penalties after a tie at two. The shootout, in the style of the American MLS of the 90s, a kind of heads-up between goalkeeper and pitcher, was decided for Anniquiladores thanks to goalkeeper Dani Pérez. The fight for the other ticket, between Saiyans and El Barrio, began slowly until the rules dynamited the match: a two-on-two for two minutes caused it to go from a goalless tie to a draw to two at halftime. After the restart, El Barrio settled the match with a goal in the last minute from Ros (4-3).
The fireworks preceded a more decaffeinated final between the seventh and eighth of the regular phase. El Barrio put the victory on track at the beginning with the penalty goals from president Adri Contreras, a license from the regulations, and another from Mantovani with a header. The saves by José Juan, Alcoyano’s recent hero, and Mantovani’s final goal sealed the victory for the Azulados (3-0).
Coach Juan Arroita’s players celebrated the title as if it were a League or a Champions League, the setting was worth it. El Barrio lifted the trophy to the skies of Barcelona, ??a triumph for Adri Contreras’s club and for Piqué, his first great success after years adding to his record dressed in shorts.
