Jordi Alba ends his active football career. With the Spaniard, one of the best left-backs of the past decade is calling it quits – who had a very special relationship with Lionel Messi.
The next great football legend is leaving the stage! After Sergio Busquets, his teammate Jordi Alba has now also announced that he will end his career after the current MLS season concludes.
Until the end of the year, Alba will still lace up his football boots alongside Busquets and his longtime friend Lionel Messi. Then it’s over.
Jordi Alba ends his football career
“It’s time to close a significant chapter in my life,” said Alba in a farewell video on social media: “I’m doing this with absolute conviction, with inner fulfillment and with joy. I feel like I’ve walked this path with every fiber of my heart.”
With Alba, another quiet helper of mega-star Lionel Messi is retiring. Together with the Argentine, he shaped football for over a decade, won numerous titles with FC Barcelona, and left his mark on Barcelona’s playing style as an offensive left-back.
Alba collected numerous titles
The Spaniard is a real title collector. He won a whopping 22 trophies with his clubs and the national team. With Spain (93 international matches, 10 goals), he became European champion in 2012 and won the Nations League in 2023.
Alba was particularly successful with FC Barcelona. In 459 competitive games between 2012 and 2023, he won the Champions League in 2015, became Spanish champion six times, and won the Spanish Cup five times.
With his speed and unbroken offensive drive, he shaped the Catalans’ playing style. Of course, especially Lionel Messi, but also other offensive players like Neymar or Luis Suárez were in the absolute media focus during their joint peak period, but without Alba, the many successes probably wouldn’t have been possible.
The statistics show this too. As a left-back, the Spaniard scored 27 goals, but repeatedly set up his teammates with his dangerous crosses and passes. He recorded 99 assists for Barcelona.
Messi says emotional goodbye to Alba
A large portion of his scoring points Alba actually collected in direct combination with his friend Messi. The two set each other up for a whopping 48 goals.
A statistic that is already impressive, but becomes even more impressive when you consider that both never played on the same side. Jordi Alba always operated as a left-back. Lionel Messi, on the other hand, played on the right wing or in the center.
Also because of this special connection, Messi emotionally bid farewell to his teammate on Instagram: “After all the time together, it will be strange to look to the left and not see you there.”
“Who will pass back to me now?” Messi continued. A reference to Alba’s legendary flat balls from the edge of the penalty area or from the wing back to the sixteen-yard box, perfectly to the Argentine’s foot, who only had to slot the ball into the goal.
Alba set up Messi’s legendary goal
And from exactly such a situation came one of Messi’s most legendary goals, on April 23, 2017, during El Clásico in Madrid.
On matchday 33, Barcelona needed a win against arch-rivals Real Madrid to climb to the top of the table. The game was already in stoppage time with the score at 2:2 when Alba found Messi from the goal line with one of his precise back-passes and he coolly scored the winner with his left foot.
Jordi Alba celebrates Messi’s legendary goal against Real Madrid
Messi’s subsequent celebration with his removed jersey demonstratively in front of the Real fans went down in football history. A moment, like so many, that wouldn’t have happened without Jordi Alba.
Furthermore, it clearly emphasizes that Alba was probably one of, if not the best friend of Lionel Messi on the football pitch and at his peak one of the best full-backs in the world.
“One of the most underrated players of our era”
Incidentally, Alba, similar to his longtime teammate Sergio Busquets, didn’t receive individual awards in Messi’s shadow. He wasn’t even selected for a UEFA Team of the Year.
Not without reason, his former teammate and later coach Xavi Hernández called Alba one of the “most underrated players of our era.”
Alba was also one of the most loyal players of the Barcelona era. Even when things weren’t going so well, he stayed, even giving up salary for his financially struggling club.
He also experienced what was probably the most bitter humiliation in the club’s history when Barcelona with him on the field lost 8-2 to Bayern in the 2020 Champions League quarterfinals and were completely humiliated.
Will Alba win another title with Messi at the end?
By that time, not much remained of the once so dominant left-back. Nevertheless, he stayed for three more years before being finally sorted out at Barcelona by none other than his former teammate Xavi.
His congenial partner Lionel Messi had already been gone for some time by then, but immediately after Alba’s departure from Barcelona, their paths crossed again at Inter Miami.
Jordi Alba wants to win another title with Inter Miami
And so it fits well that Messi is once again on the field with him at the conclusion of Alba’s career. The Spaniard’s last game will likely also be played together.
For the farewell, there might even be a title: Inter Miami has already qualified for the MLS playoffs. Perhaps in those very playoffs, Alba will find his buddy Messi once more with one of his brilliant diagonal balls. It would suit this special connection.