(Football news) Gerard Pique has officially announced his retirement from football. The legendary center back will play his last professional game against Almeria at the Camp Nou. Barcelona have one more game before the World Cup where Pique will not be playing. The retirement comes out of nowhere and has shocked world football as we are not even halfway through the season. Pique is just 35 years of age which makes his decision even more surprising. In his announcement video, Pique said that he always thought that he will not wear any jersey after Barcelona and that is how it will be. It will be interesting to hear Xavi's thoughts in his next press conference. He, like everyone else, would've been surprised. The immediate problem for him right now is that he has lost another center back ahead of the last game before the World Cup which is away at Osasuna.

In his illustrious career, Pique has won everything there is to win with Manchester United, FC Barcelona and the Spanish national team. The last 2-3 years have been difficult for him as Barcelona have struggled while he has also slowed down quite a bit. This season in particular Pique slipped down to 5th or sometimes even 6th choice center back. After injuries to the other defenders, Xavi had no option but to use Pique. Those games were when Pique looked completely out of place and made a few howlers. From this perspective his decision is completely understandable as he is nowhere at the level he used to be.

The reason why it is strange is because there is still half a season left and it would've made a lot of sense to hang up his boots at the end of the ongoing campaign. There is definitely something that's happened behind the scenes at Barcelona which has led to this decision. A couple of years ago when Barcelona lost 8-2 against Bayern Munich, Pique said that the club needed new blood and he would be the first to step back in order to bring in new recruits. Since then he has sort of gone against his word by refusing to leave the club. At the beginning of the season there were reports that Pique said to the Barcelona board that they can bring new center backs but he will bench them all and continue playing.

Pique wanted to retire at Barcelona because of his love for the club and also because his family live there and going anywhere else would've been a huge ask. There is a realistic possibility that Barcelona were forcing Pique to leave the club in January due to which he had to retire. Regardless of how his career has ended, Pique is one of the greatest center backs of all time. In his prime he was a nightmare for all strikers. Now Barcelona will have to move on and find someone else to take over.

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