Barcelona secured a 2-0 win over Almeria last night to go top of La Liga, but the night belonged to Gerard Pique, who was playing his last game at Camp Nou.
The Spanish star had announced he would retire from football and that was to be his final professional match.
Barcelona, who won with second-half goals from Ousmane Dembele and Frenkie de Jong, rose to the top of the table on 34 points from 13 games, two ahead of arch-rivals Real Madrid who have a game in hand and will visit Rayo Vallecano tomorrow.
After missing several chances in the first-half, including a penalty for a handball that Robert Lewandowski screwed wide, Dembele broke the deadlock three minutes after the break, and De Jong made sure of the points in the 62nd minute.
At a packed Camp Nou where everything surrounding the game was about the 35-year-old Pique, including the Barcelona players’ shirts which had the word “Sempr3”, “Forever” in Catalonian, with Pique’s number 3 replacing the letter E.
Pique, who started the game as captain, won 30 trophies with Barcelona, including three UEFA Champions League and eight LaLiga titles.
The elegant centre-back had a solid game and almost scored in the first half with two headers from corners against a defensive Almeria side who only had one shot on target in the match.
Pique was substituted off with seven minutes left, walking off the pitch in tears to a standing ovation from the 92,605 fans — the highest attendance at the Camp Nou so far this season — who packed the stadium to say goodbye to a club and national legend.
He was thrown in the air by his team mates at the end of the match and gave an emotional speech to the adoring crowd.
“After a relationship of so much love and passion, I think it was time to give ourselves some space,” Pique told the Barcelona fans who stayed behind for several minutes at the end of the game to honour their idol as tears rolled down his cheeks.
“I am sure that in the future I will be here again. This is not a farewell, I already said it when I was 16 years old when I went to Manchester United and came back. As my grandfather says, I was born here and I will die here. Visca Barca!”
Pique joined the Barcelona academy when he was 10 years old but left as a teenager to join United, where he made his professional debut in 2004.
He played one season on loan for Real Zaragoza before going back to Old Trafford where he was part of the squad that claimed the Champions League and Premier League double in the 2007/2008 season before returning to Barcelona at the end of that campaign to join Pep Guardiola’s revolution.
In 15 seasons at Camp Nou, Pique has become the player with the fifth most appearances in the Spanish club’s history (667) after Lionel Messi (778), Xavi Hernandez (767), Sergio Busquets (694) and Andres Iniesta (674).
Incidentally, all of these club legends players together during the golden era under Guardiola.
Regarded as one of the best centre-backs of his generation, Pique won 36 trophies during his 18-year career, including the 2010 World Cup and 2012 European Championship with Spain.
