"Xavi and Iniesta had not won at all without warriors like Puyol"

During the last decades, the FC Barcelona has had footballers of world-wide size like Leo Messi, considered the best footballer of all time and Xavi Hernández or Andrés Iniesta, two midfield players that marked a before and an afterwards in this sport. Nevertheless, so that they shined there were others equally important.

One of them was Carles Puyol, a central defence that also has his gap in the history by capitanear this team with his harp and his form to defend. Besides, others like Víctor Valdés or Sergio Busquets worked from the shadow so that other players could shine more than them, but his task did not happen unobserved.

This is the message that wanted to do arrive Carles Naval, delegated of the first staff for many years, in an interview for the French publication 'Him Temps'. In her, it recognised that players like Xavi Hernández or Andrés Iniesta "have propulsado to the club to another dimension, are out of the norm, and give him an only sense to the balloon".

Naval recognised that midfield players of such size "are exceptional", although puntualizó that all they need of another profile of players behind. "Without guerrilleros like Carles Puyol or the stops of Víctor Valdés, one of the best goalkeepers of the history of the club, had not won at all", commented the delegate of the FC Barcelona.

On the period in which all they coincided with Pep Guardiola in the bench, explained a curious anecdote on the mythical party of Champions League in Stamford Bridge in front of Chelsea: "all precipitated on the corner to jump on Andrés and in a moment found me I only in the bench. Why it went to run if afterwards it was necessary to go back? Pep said me immediately that it was necessary to do a change and no longer could saborearlo more".

A Barcelona irrepetible

Naval remembered with nostalgia this period in which the Masia commanded in the European and world-wide football to the orders of Guardiola, but also remembered the legendary 'Dream Team' of the years 90. "The team was practically unbeatable and woke up the admiration of Europe, but what more memory was the family that formed", said, on that Barça of Johan Cruyff.