Former Barcelona midfielder Andres Iniesta has confirmed he is retiring after 22 years at the highest level of football.
During a solid football career, the midfielder won the Champions League four times in a decade and a half with Barcelona’s first team.
He also won the World Cup by scoring in the 2010 final, and won the European Championship with Spain in 2008 and 2012.
The legendary playmaker, now 40, officially announced his retirement with an emotional announcement in a video posted to his social media channels on Monday.
The video, captioned “The game goes on'', featured a number of football figures including Pep Guardiola, Louis van Gaal and Luis Enrique paying their respects, before Iniesta said: The video showed him emotionally talking about what soccer means to him.
Iniesta, who until recently played for UAE Pro League club Emirates, had the option to extend his contract until 2025, but decided to terminate his contract due to his active career.
Iniesta, famous for scoring the winning goal in the 2010 World Cup final as Spain lifted the country’s first and only trophy in its history, went on to make around 900 appearances for Barça, Vissel Kobe and Emirates.
Iniesta joined Barça’s academy at the age of 12 in 1996, originally living in La Masia, and made 54 appearances for the club’s B team before breaking into the first team in 2002.
During the club's storied era, playing alongside the likes of Carles Puyol, Xavi Hernández and Lionel Messi, Iniesta helped form the backbone of a team that won numerous Champions League and La Liga titles.
He finally left Barça in 2018 after appearing in nearly 700 games and winning nine La Liga titles and four Champions Leagues out of the 32 trophies he won with the club.
At international level, he won 131 caps for Spain and was a key player in the La Roja team that won the European Championship and the World Cup from 2008 to 2012.
Perhaps the most famous moment of his career came in South Africa in 2010, when he scored the only goal in the final as Spain defeated the Netherlands 1-0 to become world champions.
After leaving Barça and retiring as an international player, Iniesta spent five years in Japan with Vissel Kobe, winning the J1 League in 2023 before ending his career at the Emirates.
