Wednesday 26 August 2009

Emotional goodbye of Jorquera

Speaking at a press conference, former Barcelona goalkeeper Albert Jorquera said goodbye to the club:

"My time at Barcelona has been a dream. I never thought it would become a reality but I'm taking incredible experiences with me. As a Catalan and a culé, it has been an honour to have worn this shirt for fifteen years.

There have been a lot of great moments. The day of my debut, the titles won, quite a lot... To have won two Champions Leagues and three league titles is something I could never have imagined.


It's clear the squad is devastated by my exit (laughs). With some of my team-mates I have spent a lot of years together in this club. I will miss them and I'm sure they will miss me too. But I won't be far and I'm leaving for professional reasons that they will perfectly understand. The dressing-room is united, more than ever. I'm sure the successes will continue.

I want to take this chance to thank all those who have been by my side during all those years at the club, from the people at the youth academy, coaches, players, officials, to all the people around the squad. All my team-mates who have made all these great years possible.


I also want to thank Girona for having believed in me to be part of their project. There comes a time that you have to make a decision and for sporting reasons, the offer of Girona was the best one for me. The coach has his ideas and he wants to continue with two goalkeepers. I'm starting a new stage in my career and it's an emotional moment. This is my home and it is very difficult to leave. Visca el Barça y visca el Girona!"

Read more:
OFFICIAL: Jorquera to Girona



The whole Barcelona squad, the coaching staff and several club officials assisted today the last press conference of Albert Jorquera, who joined Spanish second division club Girona yesterday. The player got a standing ovation at the end of his speech.

31 comments:

fcbee said...

Piqué was again dressed for the occasion... lol

skanjos said...

lol at the pic ,pique rulez

on jorquera ,he was dead weight for the team.good to see him go ,also opened a spot for a young keeper when needed

barca4life said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
barca4life said...

Oh behave skanjos. The man was willing to sit on our bench and cover for valdes for many years. He was a good shot stopper if not a good goalkeeper and i remember him making a few good saves in la liga around the 2004/2005 season. He as the young keeper when he started and he stayed. The next "young keeper" will come in and most likely be a backup till he leaves like Jorquera. Honestly its a team. Everybody has to play their part.

Do you know how hard it must be to train every day knowing that most likely you will never play? And yet he stayed because we wanted him to be a backup. I'm sure he could have left for other clubs at different stages but we wanted him to be our reserve gk. Now you celebrate and call him dead weight and are happy to see him go? Some barca fans are such jerks.

engelin said...

barca4life

Right on! I'm also tierd of people who tries to make Jorquera to a joke. Without him we might have ended up with a greedy and unhappy backup goalie, that might have made the team morale bad.

Visca Jorquera!

hawk_barca_4_life said...

@ barca4life
u r correct wht ever it was he was there when we needed to fill the spot as our reserve... he has done his job and he deserves all the credit !!!!
good bye jorquera ...wish u all the best with girona!!!

groga said...

all the luck to him!

Anonymous said...

A class move by the team with the standing ovation for a class guy. Good Luck to Jorquera!

creus said...

I have nothing but respect for this guy. Wish him all the best in Girona.

tero said...

I wish him luck but the fact is that he was not needed here anymore

André said...

Jorquera was a real team player. All those years on the bench and never complaining and training hard.He really has my respect,even if he was not first 11 material. All teams need back up players in their squad.I´m disgusted that some of you Barca-fans who call yourself culé,describes our backup goalie dead weight and glad he left etc. Real culé my ass!

skanjos said...

or maybe if that spot wasnt taken we would have given young keepers more chances and by now we might had the next casillas.....
sorry but jorquera was holding the 3rd keeper position not the 2nd,the 3rd position should always be for a young player.i sure dont know the reasons jorquera stayed,and sure you dont either but either way his stay was not beneficial for the club in long term,my thought

yuti said...

Mino or Oier aren't good enough anyway. You think we would have been after Asenjo if one of them was the next big thing?

And the club asked him last January to stay because we were fighting for the treble while he has serious offers from Liga clubs like Mallorca and Sporting. So get your fact straight, skanjos, think twice before you say something and respect the players.

A salute to Albert!

barca4life said...

He was injured in the past 2 seasons. Would you have had us would you have had us dump him while he was injured after he had stayed with us since he joined the club aged 15? Maybe we should dump Milito too eh? What a classless move. It says a lot about you how you treat your players when they are down.

yuti said...

I have to say I also wouldn't have offered him a new contract in 2008. Now they seemed to have been too compassionate and probably offered him a new two-year deal only because he was injured. Which also isn't the right way to act. As we see now, sporting reasons should be the only guideline.

barca4life said...

Well remember yuti even with pinto we only took him on loan. If pinto did not want to come back jorquera would still be our 2nd gk.

skanjos said...

i dont care engelin,my opinion is that he shouldnt have ever been a barcelona player,he is a player like oleguer supported by the "cules" mainly cause he is homegrown(every homegrown player is sacred.....) but the fact is he never had the talent to break into the first 11,my opinion is if a player will never be able to do so and isnt helping the team should leave,like guddy and henrique are now(but they are different they are not homegrown....).noone cared when we sold rustu/enke but jorquera is a hero....for staying so many years in the bench...not for me, he has now 2 cl medals even though he didnt take part in the competition....and he has been crowned league champion...thats the real reason he stayed ,well thats the money and the fact that he loves the team i count that too(thats my opinion as yours is that he only loves the team thats why he stayed...and rainbows and butterflies everywhere....)

so if a player is injured we offer him a new contract?i dont get your thinking b4l......what if we offered thuram a new contract and didnt sign pique?what if we offered mota a new contract and didnt sign yaya(in the end).you cant live on guesses.for milito its not up to me to decide but if his contracts end i wouldnt renew it,you cant sold an injured player.but you dont renew his contract while he is no good to your team.

"andre" m8 i really hope one day i will be a real cule like yourself :).

also how do you know that mino/oier dont have what it takes?they could had taken more minutes and proved more.also remember reina leaving?he didnt want to be n2 and n3,dont you agree that albert held down valdes development too?if he had better competition he would have been a better keeper,maybe then he would had a chance to play for spain.... you dont know it,how the team would be affected without albert,my opinion is that the team would be better without him,pep sees it you dont ,i agree with pep and count his opinion above yours soz.....

p.s. i bet you are of the people that were sad to see oleguer leave,i was not.

barca4life said...

Skanjos for your information, Jorquera played in the Champions League in the 2005/2006 season and the 2008/2009 season.

Nobody said give him a contract because he was injured. He was the 2nd choice gk before Pinto arrived. What is so hard about that to understand? Jorquera was the 2nd choice keeper up to 2008 when he got injured. We signed Pinto on loan as a backup. What should we have done?

Kick out Jorquera who has been at the club and loyal to the club since age 15 as soon as he got injured. Tell him screw you, you were the 2nd choice but you got an injury so get the fuck out? Are you really that much of a heartless bastard?

This isnt like Thuram at all. Thuram didnt grow up in the Barcelona youth system and stay loyal to us for over 10 years.

You do not agree with Pep because Pep did not tell Jorquera he was dead weight and he was glad to see him go. You are behaving in a totally classless way.

Jorquera is blocking the youth? Dont you think if Mino was the next casillas we would have heard of him like we did asenjo?

You are the most classless individual I have ever met in my life. I'll bet in 2 years time you'll be saying puyol is dead weight and we should sell him and promote muniesa right? Cause we dont show loyalty to anybody. I am actually physically sickened at your reaction to Jorquera.

Iason said...

He was a third choice goalie, do you think we should have a great goalie for that role? All teams need a third choice goalie and he was ours. Don't treat him like a hero because he wasn't but don't treat him with disrespect because he played his role to perfection. If we sold him a few years ago and bought another goalie, it would not have made difference because the new goalie would have done the same thing. He was never expected to break into the first team, he was always suppose to be a sub and he did just that. He played his part and you should be more thankful.

Mario ch said...

Its sad to read such articles on this great blog

barca4life said...

And I also have never said I wished Guddy or Henrique leaves. You barcelona fans have such short memories. Go look at the 2006/2007 season at anfield and see who scored the winner for us. But you are so quick to call guddy trash. If left up to you we have 11 player alone right? This isnt fifa 09 or Football Manager, we cant only have first team players in our squad. This is real life. There must be squad players who add depth to a squad. But you apparently dont understand this so I wont waste my time anymore. I just hope one day if you are hurt somebody doesnt call you useless and fire you from your job.

Alvaro said...

Iason: amen! The guy was never vital to Barcelona but at least he deserves our respect. Skanjos, I don't think that's so hard to understand. "He shouldn't have ever been a Barcelona player" - wow man you know sooo much about goalkeepers. Maybe Casillas and Asenjo will want to join us to be our 2nd and 3rd goalkeepers, we still have time until August 31st. Ask them.

Anonymous said...

Why do i see some of the people making comments like an true royal idiot.....?

When somebody leaves the team, we should respect their stay and that's a bottom line. Without them we should have missed something in past or they wouldn't be here in first place.

Respect his stay and move on......

don't try to dig the past and cry like a baby..... I didn't read all the comment but comment from Yuti was like baby crying ...

Grow up boy

skanjos said...

b4l.
i bet jorquera played in very crucial matches.

thats what i say he shouldnt have been the 2nd place keeper at all.....he was spared only because he was homegrown like oleguer....and because we would almost never have to use him and he wouldnt mind sit on the bench,

i said we should had a young 3rd choice keeper and another player that can challenge valdes and rotate with him without the world changing is this so hard to understand?

offcourse this isnt like thuram,thuram isnt homegrown,this shows how "some" fans feel about players coming to the club and it sickens me,it also explains the exits of rivaldo,eto,ronaldinho......

pep is releasing jorquera cause its the best for him,he wont play any match and he costs the team,also guardiola agrees to what i think,have 2 keepers and "if" ever needed use a youth keeper for back,a third keeper worst than the first 2 is dead weight and unwanted wage spending for the team.also i am glad to see him go to m8

how?if the kids dont get chances,especially in the gk area,did valdes showed as a great prospect?no ,did reina show as a great prospect? no,believe me there were very good talks about oier when he played for the youth spain teams.

dont put words in my mouth puyol is world class ,even at 33-34 he can be a great player on the field only by his expirience.also puyol is playing CB challenging other 4 people for the spot.even though i think 4 cb's are enough.how can you ever compare puyol to jorquera this shows how closeminded you are...

for guddy ,m8 he offers nothing to the team atm,a great pass every now and then,but he slows the team alot,and when i say alot i mean it,i bet you watched the preseason games,when pep used him as striker he sucked,when pep moved him to the midfield we went to creativity zero and couldnt even move the ball right.i dont say he is trash but i prefer thiago and jonathan to take the minutes guddy would take this year,which arent alot.

again comparing different things and putting words in my mouth.... did i say i want 11 players?i want 22 ,2 players for each position and 3 more youth to play both the b league and with the first team.we dont need 3 keepers,2 are enough and a kid playing at the b team in order to get matches and be fit if needed.

why should i respect a guy that never was vital to the team ,he was paid good money to sit on the bench and got with the team to enjoy winning leagues and cl?want to see threads about ezquerro and how most people felt when he left?why is this any different?

homegrown fans....

enlgein (drunk) said...

So you say we should just throw our home grownplayer away like trash, just beacuse there are better players on the market?
take for exampele bojan. i bet that there is a lot of better strikers in the world who is about he's age, 19-22. BUT, if we sell bojan, we might aswell sell muniesa, and we might aswell sell pedro, fontas and even pique. just beacuse there are better players in does positions. and if we do that, we would end up like los blancos. with no real pride and with a bunch of non-heart players.
i prefer jorquera over pinto, since albert is catalan and pinto is not. it has to do with pride and loyalty. we are a catalan team, let us stay that way.
and i like jorquera even more beacuse he has choose a catalan team, over a spanish team.
we must pay respect to our roots, and respect the players who respect that code.

skanjos said...

no i dont say that.i say treat every player the same.i did never say buy a 3rd keeper,i said use a youth keeper as a 3rd choice.
dude i am pro using youth players,i dont care if they are catalan or not,players like jeffren/thiago/dos santos/pedro are not catalan but i want to see them in the first team and take chances.where the hell did i say sell young players?i said release the untalented ones,not everyone can be first team material ,we cant keep everyplayer .

"i prefer jorquera over pinto, since albert is catalan and pinto is not. it has to do with pride and loyalty. we are a catalan team, let us stay that way.
and i like jorquera even more beacuse he has choose a catalan team, over a spanish team.
we must pay respect to our roots, and respect the players who respect that code."

see thats where you are wrong pinto is better than jorquera and it does better for the team to keep him,why do you question pinto's loyalty and pride?cause he is not a catalan,thats discrimination.jorquera didnt choose anything,xavi/bojan and others play with the catalan team also,jorquera was never any good to play with the spains national team.

sorry but i dont see barcelona as a catalan team.it is the proud of cataluna but it is a multinational team now.many great players made barcelona the team it is today and to question their love and loyalty for the team is absurd.you cant ignore the loyalty of players like cryuff,thats disrespectfull ,i hate what some "true cules" are becoming.

we saw the same thing happen with bojan and dos santos,mainly cause dos santos isnt spanish or catalan,he was judged much more than bojan,some say that he has a bad personality but they dont know the kind of pressure he did take for not being catalan in this team from the outside.bojan does a mistake dont worry,dos santos made one and fans booed him.its not too away to forget those things.

you want to see how disrespect works,watch the board and how they treated eto.....

dont want to continue this, some true cules have too much "pride" to understand that their team is now what it is cause outsiders helped too.

barca4life said...

you cannot want to take over barcelona and tell the catalans what to do. Its their team. if you dont like it, hit the road jack and dont you come back no more no more no more no more.

Barcelona is a catalan team not a multinational team this is where you are finding yourself in confusion. This is what makes barcelona different from arsenal liverpool and chelsea that are english teams in name alone. Barcelona are proud to give their players a chance.

And etoo? Are you still upset over that? Get over it. he is gone. Why do players say visca barca and visca catalonia? Because its a catalan team, not an international team. And so it will stay. You however have no respect. In 2 years time you will be screaming for us to sell puyol. and in 5 years time we should get rid of xavi because he is blocking deulofeu right?

barca4life said...

So we should only have players that play for the national teams of clubs as our backups? i'm sure there are hundreds of those just waiting around right? You have no clue about what a squad is about. Jorquera saved us during the 2004/2005 season. For you to disrespect him shows what kind of person you are. I am so happy you are not in charge of barca because soon no players would want to come here, because no international gk is going to come here to sit on the bench and nobody would want to join our youth academy because of how you treat with your own players.

skanjos said...

cruyff was not catalan ,but the success of barcelona is also due to his part offcourse,teams are evolving deal with it.barcelona isnt bilbao playing only with catalans so it isnt a only catalan team,is dani alves catalan?is messi catalan?

the thing that you mention only puyol and xavi instead of messi proves my point.messi is a proud member of barcelona ,he will probably have a better future than other foreign players in the team mainly cause alot of catalan fans think he is catalan at heart and soul cause he stayed alot of years in barcelona youth teams.well no he is not,messi is argentinian (and a proud one)and he is the best player in the world and a great asset to the squad,you can say he is homegrown but you cant say he is catalan,and you cant question his pride and loyalty.

i just gave you an example of a player that was raised by this multinational now team,that has evolved its youth academies with the years,you can stay in the past and believe what you want,but barcelona is opening academies all over the world and is now a multinational team,it has a catalan heart and soul but now its different,allot of foreign players will come to play in this team ,you cant treat them differently thats discrimination.

again putting words in my mouth,did i ever say i wanted only national players ?no....

barca4life said...

You can believe what you want if it makes you better. Barcelona are not an "international" club. They are Catalan giants. Yes they bring in some talent from elsewhere but the Catalan players get preference under laporta. You may not want to believe it but go and try to become president of your international club. See what they tell you. It is a catalan club of catalan people. But I dont need to keep telling you that. It is a fact whether you believe it or not.

Unknown said...

Regardless of what everyone says... One must respect Jorquera and the fact that he was a true cules. For that and for all the years with Barca we respect you and wish you good luck :)

If some people here don't like how Barca runs they can turn to Madrid or Inter where they try to buy everyone. We don't work like that.

Barca is a Catalan team and I hardly think giving priority to catalans is unjust! This isn't the EPL ...

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