Iniesta: "I feel best in midfield"

Barcelona player Andrés Iniesta gave an interview to Catalan newspaper Avui.





How are you feeling now. Your ten days off with an injury don't seem to have made you lose the rhythm.
No, I almost didn't stop training and I kept the same level of physical fitness. I feel very good.

You're doing some specific training after your two muscle injuries?
I'm strengthening the zone where I had problems, but injuries are part of football. I've always be very careful although it's true that you're becoming more interested and cautious when you had injuries.

When you were injured for two months in November and December, the team didn't feel your absence. Last time, they did. You think that the opponents are getting to know the team better and your role as a decisive player becomes more important?
We didn't win a few games. And when you don't win and someone is not there, people always talk about those players who are missing. But it's true that those ten days seemed longer than the two months I was out before, because I saw that things didn't turn out well for the team. When everybody is there, the team is always stronger.

Against Mallorca you played up front, against Athletic in midfield, where you feel better.
Because that's my natural position. I can play on other positions, but everyone is specialized in one position and I feel best in midfield. I know that position inside out, I have the automatisms. I can do my thing at other positions too, although it's not that easy for me, even when it might seem it is (laughs).

The fact that you have played on the left wing, almost by accident, has made you progress?
It made me more complete. Some think it's better to play at one position, but I think I get better as a player. Playing itself is the main thing. The confidence that I get after having regularly played over the last 2-3 years is what makes me better every day.

Where will this end?
I hope this year will have a spectacular end for the team. But what motivates me more every year is that I feel better. I'm growing. I will get better.

Can you give an example of something you can get better at?
I can get better at everyting. Football isn't mathematics, you always have to improvise, shoot better, get more often in the box, score more.

You've experienced a change in the squad?
The most important thing is the respect of your teammates. I still feel the same, but over the years you gain more experience, the teammates are looking at you in a different way, they respect you a lot more. It's like that in normal life and it's like that in the dressingroom.

People said that you and Xavi cannot play together in midfield. Was that a mistake from the start or your progress proved them wrong?
There are so many people and so many ways to look at the game that it's difficult to say which one is the correct way. I think we always have been able to play better and I think that now nobody can question that anymore. There are always those kinds of myths, like the one saying that small players cannot play together. I think it's more about personal preferences than really about the game.

Guardiola said on Saturday that you're an example as you don't have piercings or paint your hair. You feel out of place between the stars?
No. I see football as a game and a spectacle, from what happens on the pitch to what happens in the stands. But when I leave my role as football player behind, I'm like everyone else. Everyone is who he is and does with his life what he wants.

You have a tattoo?
No, but it's true that the dressingroom is full of them.

There's a tattoo artist in the Gràcia neighbourhood who, people say, gives you special powers.
If I need that one day, I might go there but at this moment I'm fine just like this.


This was the second and last part of this interview. You can read the first part here:
Iniesta: "We have returned to the basics"

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