CM: Andres Iniesta
The most iconic image of Andres Iniesta is one of him sitting in the centre circle surrounded by every midfielder better than him in the 21st Century. His Barcelona career was outscored by John Terry at Chelsea – but the Spaniard remains perhaps the most influential footballer of his generation.
When FourFourTwo was founded, midfielders were bruisers and brutes. 30 years later, almost to the day, Iniesta is retiring having reinvented the very image of what a midfielder is, can be and should be.
He’s far more than Xavi’s introverted half: he could do both roles on his lonesome and so much more. He was the complete footballer.
Iniesta introduced himself to the world in the 2006 Champions League final, essentially cosplaying as Andrea Pirlo to puppeteer an ever-frantic Barça with the coolness they needed. He would play in another three, and was arguably the best player in each. He was the Spaniard that broke free to personally etch his nation’s name on the World Cup trophy for the first time, dedicating the goal to late friend Dani Jarque. He resurfaced from his own depression in the same moment; he would become the catalyst behind Clasicos, the clutch in Pep Guardiola’s unprecedented first season in senior football.
His DNA runs through modern football, yet he barely left a footprint – and that’s just how he liked it. The quiet genius who changed football, like a waiter removing a table-cloth without so much as chinking a glass. And he received a fraction of the credit he should have done. That Iniesta is known as ‘the Illusionist’ in Spanish football is telling – this is a man who could never be measured in black and white but the flickers, flecks and feints; moments and movements of an imagination whirring faster than anyone else's.
That's what Iniesta gave us; that's our defining memory of him. Imagination.
Mark White
