Sergio Busquets

Sergio Busquets Burgos (, ; born 16 July 1988) is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a defensive midfielder for Major League Soccer club Inter Miami.

A deep-lying playmaker capable of directing gameplay through short and calm passes and his singular reading of the game, he is considered one of the greatest defensive midfielders of all time.

Born in Sabadell, Barcelona, Catalonia, Busquets began playing football with local team CD Badia del Vallès, followed by spells with CEF Barberà Andalucía, Lleida and UFB Jàbac Terrassa, before joining Barcelona's youth ranks in 2005.

He scored seven goals in 26 games for the Juvenil A team in his second season and, two years later, Busquets was promoted to the B team under Pep Guardiola, and helped them achieve promotion to the third division.

In that same season he would make his first-team debut, coming on as a substitute in the Copa Catalunya.

Busquets arrived in Barcelona's first team in July 2008 and went on to receive the La Liga's Breakthrough Player in 2009.

He was part of the squads that won a continental treble of La Liga, Copa del Rey and the UEFA Champions League in 2008–09 and 2014–15.

He left the club after 14 years at the end of the 2022–23 season.

Busquets played his first La Liga match on 13 September 2008, featuring 90 minutes in a 1–1 home draw to Racing Santander.

During Barcelona's 2008–09 UEFA Champions League clash against Basel at St. Jakob-Park on 22 October 2008, he scored the second goal in the 15th minute in a 5–0 group stage win; in early December, in another start, he scored his second with Barça in the competition, netting in the 83rd minute of a 2–3 home loss against Shakhtar Donetsk.

On 22 December 2008, Busquets signed a contract extension until 2013 with a buy-out clause of €80 million.

From the 2009–10 season, he was a first team regular and was part of a widely lauded midfield trio with Andrés Iniesta and Xavi.

Busquets made over 700 total appearances for the club, winning 32 trophies, including nine La Liga titles, seven Copa del Rey titles and three UEFA Champions Leagues.

Busquets made his senior international debut for Spain in April 2009, and has since made 143 appearances for the national side, scoring twice.

On 7 March 2009 he scored his first league goal, in a 2–0 home win over Athletic Bilbao.

On 27 May 2009, having been regularly played as he competed for the spot with internationals Seydou Keita and Yaya Touré, he also featured in Barcelona's starting eleven in the Champions League final, a 2–0 win over Manchester United in Rome; with that victory, Carles Busquets and Sergio Busquets became only the third father-and-son combo to both have won Europe's top club competition playing for the same team, joining Cesare Maldini and Paolo Maldini (won it with A.C. Milan) and Manuel Sanchís and Manolo Sanchís (Real Madrid).

Busquets' fine form continued in the 2009–10 campaign, with Guardiola preferring him to Touré as Barcelona's central holding midfielder.

He helped the country win the 2010 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2012 tournaments, and also featured at three other World Cups and two European Championships.

He retired from international football following the 2022 World Cup.

In the second leg of the Champions League semi-final 1–0 victory (and an eventual 2–3 aggregate defeat) against Inter Milan at Camp Nou on 28 April 2010, he went down to the ground after Thiago Motta had raised his arm and appeared to push Busquets directly in the face.

As a result of this action, the former was shown a red card and dismissed for violent conduct, whilst the latter was subsequently criticised by both Motta and the media for apparently feigning injury.

Busquets was again ever-present in 2010–11, even playing as a centre back on occasions.

On 27 January 2011, he signed a contract extension that would keep him at the club until 2015 – the buyout clause was increased to €150 million.

On 8 March 2011, playing at centre back, he scored an own goal from a corner kick against Arsenal, in the season's Champions League round-of-16, levelling the score at 1–1; Barcelona eventually won the game 3–1 (and 4–3 on aggregate).

On 28 May, Busquets played the full match during his side's 3–1 Champions league final victory against Manchester United at Wembley Stadium.

Busquets scored a rare goal on 24 April 2012 – only his sixth official one in four years – netting from an easy tap-in after an Isaac Cuenca cross to make it 1–0 for the hosts in the second leg of the Champions League semi-finals against Chelsea.

Barcelona could only draw 2–2 against ten men as the English club came back from being 0–2 down; his team eventually lost 2–3 on aggregate, after already having lost 1–0 in the first leg at Stamford Bridge.

On 16 July 2013, the day he celebrated his 25th birthday, Busquets agreed to a new deal until 2018, with the buyout clause remaining unaltered.

On 1 August 2014, after the retirement of long time club captain and defender Carles Puyol and at the veteran's personal request, he was given the number 5 shirt for the upcoming campaign and was named one of the four captains for the club alongside Xavi, Andrés Iniesta and Lionel Messi.

Busquets started on 6 June in the 2015 Champions League final, as the team won their fifth accolade in the competition by beating Juventus 3–1 at Berlin's Olympiastadion.

This made Barcelona the first club in history to win the treble of domestic league, domestic cup and European Cup twice, and Dani Alves, Busquets, Andrés Iniesta, Lionel Messi, Pedro, Gerard Piqué and Xavi the only players to achieve the same feat.

On 3 October 2015, Busquets captained Barcelona for the first time in the absence of regular captain Iniesta and vice-captain Messi in a 1–2 away defeat to Sevilla.

Busquets opened the scoring in a 3–0 win against Las Palmas on 1 October 2017, with the match being played behind closed doors at the Camp Nou due to the ongoing Catalan independence referendum.

Around a year later, he signed a new contract until June 2023, which increased his buyout clause from €200 million to €500 million.

On 24 November 2018 he played his 500th game for Barcelona away to Atlético Madrid, and he made his 100th Champions League appearance on 11 December, in a 1–1 group stage home draw against Tottenham Hotspur.

On 9 January 2021, Busquets made his 600th appearance for Barcelona in a 4–0 win against Granada at the Los Cármenes.

Only his contemporaries Xavi, Iniesta and Messi had played more games in the history of the club.

In August, he became club captain after Messi left for Paris Saint-Germain FC.

On 12 January 2023, Busquets made his 700th appearance for Barcelona in his team's penalty shoot-out victory after a 2–2 draw against Real Betis at the King Fahd International Stadium in 2022–23 Supercopa de España semi-final.

In the next match, three days later, Busquets participated in his team's 3–1 win against Real Madrid in the 2023 Supercopa de España Final, becoming the player with the most matches in the history of El Clásico with 45 matches, jointly with Lionel Messi and Sergio Ramos, in addition he becoming the player with the most wins in El Clásico matches, with 21 matches, jointly with Paco Gento.