Sergio Busquets didn\u2019t expect to last this long. More than a decade ago, he predicted he\u2019d retire by his early 30s. But when he finally announced in September that he\u2019ll hang up his boots at the end of Inter Miami\u2019s season, he did so as a 37-year-old defensive midfielder who still somehow never leaves the pitch for one of the best teams in MLS.<\/p>\n
He could be playing his final game this weekend, if Miami lose their conference semi-final against FC Cincinnati on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me it\u2019s a shame, because I think he\u2019s a player who\u2019s still active, who can continue to give a lot to the club. We can continue to enjoy the level he has,\u201d said his manager Javier Mascherano, who was once forced to become a center-back when he couldn\u2019t beat out a young Busquets in Barcelona\u2019s midfield.<\/p>\n
What is it that still makes Busquets so good? The one flaw in his game is glaring \u2013 he\u2019s old and immobile, practically Methuselah by midfield standards. But his virtues are more subtle, a hundred small decisions per match that have to be rewound a few times to be fully appreciated. As an anonymous blogger\u2019s wife<\/a> famously said, watch Busquets and you see the whole game.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not, and never have been, an athletically quick player,\u201d Busquets confessed on Catalan radio a few years back. Like everything else about him, that was elegantly understated. According to data from Gradient Sports<\/a>, no midfielder in MLS travels less total distance per 90 minutes this season or covers less ground at speeds above a jog. Although his sprints still top out at a respectable 19.6 miles per hour, he grinds through the gears like an old hatchback, accelerating slower over the first 10 meters than any outfield starter in the league.<\/p>\n Busquets\u2019 secret has always been that his brain is quicker than his opponents\u2019 feet. \u201cMine is a position where you can\u2019t be moving all over the pitch,\u201d he told the Catalan radio show. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to think more than run.\u201d<\/p>\n Watch him play and you\u2019ll see his head moves more than his body, swivelling and scanning, spotting the next play before it unfolds. His movements are short but purposeful, always slightly anticipating the action, stepping into space just as it opens or closing ground the moment before a turnover. He thinks in and out of possession at the same time.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cDefensively, positioning is everything,\u201d Busquets once said<\/a>. \u201cMore than stopping the counterattack when it happens you want to prevent it from starting. It\u2019s more about being tactically astute than physically dominant. You need to know exactly where to be on the pitch at all times.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s truer than ever in his final season. In SkillCorner<\/a>\u2019s advanced stats, the defensive metrics where Busquets is still above average have anticipatory names: \u201cdisrupt or regain,\u201d \u201cstop or reduce danger.\u201d He knows better than anyone that he has to snuff out trouble or he\u2019ll struggle to catch up to it.<\/p>\n Youth and athleticism may be fleeting but class on the ball never gets old. \u201cHe could just be walking around and dictate games. He didn\u2019t feel the pressure,\u201d Busquets\u2019 former Barcelona teammate Cesc F\u00e0bregas marvelled on a podcast. \u201cYou could press him as hard as possible and he would do unexpected things.\u201d The internet loves videos of Busquets\u2019 signature move, in which he shows opponents the ball and then yanks it away at the last second, switching direction just in time to leave would-be pressers in a confused heap.<\/p>\n His comfort under pressure lets him pick and choose the pace of play. He\u2019s famous for his one-touch passing in tight spaces but is just as likely to linger on the ball, letting the game unfurl in front of him. \u201cIt can appear that I have waited too long to play the pass, but I\u2019m just waiting to see if the options will change. They usually do,\u201d he said. \u201cI play the way I am as a person. I don\u2019t panic, I\u2019m patient.\u201d<\/p>\n How can data measure this? That knack for always making the right decision? The simplest indicator is sheer volume \u2013 his 70 pass attempts per game in the MLS<\/a> regular season rank near the top of his position, a sign of his teammates\u2019 trust \u2013 but advanced stats can go further.<\/p>\n According to American Soccer Analysis<\/a>, Busquets is in the 94th percentile of MLS midfielders this season for how much his passes beat their expected completion percentage and in the 93rd for how much each pass improves his team\u2019s goal probabilities.<\/p>\n No midfield passer who\u2019s more accurate than him is more dangerous and no one more dangerous is more accurate.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Soccer with Jonathan Wilson<\/p>\n Jonathan Wilson brings expert analysis on the biggest stories from European soccer<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Illustration: Catalina Bush\/American Soccer Analysis<\/p>\n SkillCorner\u2019s off-ball data tells a similar story: when opponents close him down, Busquets ranks near the top of MLS for both ball retention and difficult passes under pressure. The only midfield starter who beats him on both axes is Darlington Nagbe, another press-resistant MLS legend who has made 2025 his last year as a pro.<\/p>\n Show Busquets any kind of defensive line and he\u2019ll find a way to crack it open. One of his favorite tricks is a disguised pass where he shapes his body as if to shovel the ball sideways, drawing opponents outside, then swivels his hips to slice them open through the middle. Per SkillCorner, he\u2019s in the 97th percentile among midfielders for pass attempts through the first line of defense, 98th through the second and 84th through the last line \u2013 not bad for a deep-lying pivot.<\/p>\n \u201cI really like to slip passes inside, which is ultimately the hardest thing from my position,\u201d Busquets told Vincente Del Bosque<\/a>. \u201cTo play backwards or sideways, to bring \u2018pausa\u2019 to the game, is fine, but there are moments that call for something else.\u201d<\/p>\n Lionel Messi, his teammate and Barcelona and now Inter Miami, is his favorite target for those incisive passes because \u201cwe understand each other well.\u201d<\/p>\n Their connection runs even deeper in Fort Lauderdale than when they first linked up in Barcelona 17 years ago. According to the new live score app futi<\/a>, which I co-founded, Busquets has played 74 progressive passes to Messi this season, more than any other passer-receiver pair in the league.<\/p>\n Even at the end of a long career that spans pretty much the entire modern history of soccer analytics, there\u2019s still a lot about Busquets\u2019 game that evades easy measurement: his vision and awareness, the technique behind his peculiar defensive crouch and spindly legged tackles, the way he yo-yos in and out of Inter Miami\u2019s back line to rearrange both sides\u2019 shapes and create new lanes on the fly.<\/p>\n That slight air of mystery suits Busquets, who became a legend \u2013 your favorite defensive midfielder\u2019s favorite defensive midfielder, the player Pep Guardiola famously wished he could be reincarnated as \u2013 by learning how to disappear completely. \u201cI don\u2019t want people talking about me,\u201d he told the Guardian<\/a> just before he departed Barcelona for Miami and the history books.<\/p>\n Good luck stopping that one, old man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sergio Busquets didn\u2019t expect to last this long. 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