Two decades of Iniesta, from La Masia to the Barcelona first team

Twenty years have passed since the start of the career of one of the greatest midfielders in football history, Andrés Iniesta. The Spaniard began his youth career on 6 October 1996, taking to the pitch just 20 days after joining Barcelona's La Masia academy. He has spent his entire career at Barcelona and, together with Lionel Messi, has won more trophies with the club than any other player, 29 so far. Iniesta is a Barcelona legend, and he still has plenty to offer on the pitch.

He made his senior debut for Barcelona on 29 October 2002 in a Champions League match against Club Brugge in Belgium. His first goal for the club came against Levante in the Copa del Rey, just three minutes after he came on. Another memorable moment was his first Champions League title in 2006, when he came on at half-time in the final. He was a key reason Barcelona turned the game around against Arsenal, setting up the equaliser.

Iniesta has also been highly successful at international level. The first trophy he won in a Spain shirt was the UEFA European Under-17 Championship in 2001, and a year later he was part of the team that won the Under-19 European Championship. He played for Spain's Under-21 side until 2006, when he made his senior debut. He was a surprise inclusion in Spain's squad for the 2006 World Cup, where he played only one match, a 1-0 win against Saudi Arabia.

From then on, Iniesta was central to Spain's greatest international successes. He won the European Championship twice, in 2008 and 2012, and the World Cup in 2010. He scored the most important goal of his career in the final of the WC against the Netherlands in the 116th minute, bringing the trophy to La Furia Roja for the first time.

The rest of the Barcelona years

Iniesta stayed at Barcelona for almost two more seasons after the twentieth anniversary of his first steps in the youth ranks. On 27 April 2018 he announced that he would leave the club at the end of the 2017/18 campaign, and his final appearance came on 20 May 2018 in a 1-0 home win against Real Sociedad. By then he had played 674 matches for Barcelona in all competitions and scored 57 goals, 35 of them in La Liga.

His honours with the club included nine La Liga titles and four Champions League titles. The count of trophies quoted in October 2016 therefore kept rising, and few players in the history of the game have collected so many winner's medals with a single club.

Individual awards

Iniesta's influence on the biggest occasions was recognised officially. He was named man of the match in the 2010 World Cup final against the Netherlands, the game settled by his own goal, and again in the Euro 2012 final, when Spain beat Italy 4-0. In 2012 he also received the UEFA Best Player in Europe award. Two years earlier he had finished second to his Barcelona teammate Lionel Messi in the voting for the 2010 Ballon d'Or, the closest he came to the most famous individual prize in football.

Japan and the final years

Iniesta's international career ended at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, where Spain were knocked out by the hosts on penalties in the round of 16. He retired from the national team with 131 caps. In May 2018 Vissel Kobe announced that he had signed a three-year contract with the Japanese club, and on 1 January 2020 he won his first trophy in Japan when Vissel Kobe beat Kashima Antlers 2-0 in the Emperor's Cup final. He finished his playing career with Emirates in the United Arab Emirates and announced his retirement on 7 October 2024, almost exactly 28 years after he first took to the pitch as a Barcelona youth player.