Champions: Piqu: “The results hold the club” | Champions League 2019

The central assumes that the locker room supports the board of Bartomeu, whom he excuses from the scandal of the 'fake' accounts

San Paolo, despite the reforms, continues to be a most Spartan stadium. Nothing has changed that old gym where Diego Armando Maradona delivered his first press conference as a player in Naples in 1984. The ceiling is a blue-blue curtain. The tubes, chipped, meander through walls that years ago were no longer white. There is no trace of modernity. No need to do. The mystic must be this. Gerard Piqu looked around. The eyes were going to two small shields of the Naples and Barcelona that someone had to put in front of him to decorate the space. When you are a footballer you like to try new things. And this stadium is historical. Although Piqu knew that if he was perched on the stage, it was not really to admire the stage. But to act as captain of the team, even if he is the third, behind Sergio Busquets and Leo Messi.

Two days after the Camp Nou met with the president of Barcelona, ​​Josep Maria Bartomeu, after the cyber scandal that has caused the suspension of the right hand of the gerifalte -Jaume Masferrer-, Gerard Piqu had to express his particular verdict. The central held back. I even exonerated Bartomeu, despite the fact that several of the accounts linked to I3 Ventures, a company hired by Bara and whose contract he had to terminate after revealing the mess, were rehearsing himself. Maybe it was all because Piqu well knows that there is no crisis that the wardrobe cannot stop. Or also feed. In the field, on the ball, there's everything.

The results have always endured the club, cried the Barca center, which abounds: For this club, what has happened on the pitch has always been very important. We have to keep trying to win. If not, we know that the waters do not go down calmly.

That said, a journalist asked Piqu without that statement was discussing the management of the board of directors. But the player preferred to play with ambivalence then: I do not want to get in if it is well or badly managed. It is the partner who votes in the elections. What is clear is that if the equipment loses there is a lot of noise. The results have always been paramount. We know that if we want the waters to descend calmly, the most important thing is to win. And play well.

Piqu was the one who received along with Messi, Busquets and Sergi Roberto to President Bartomeu the afternoon in which the president tried to explain to his players that he had nothing to do with the cyber scandal. As for the president's explanations, as I saw him, he believed me. He didn't know. When we had the meeting I was a little touched. But neither will it go any further. It has already come out, it has already exploded, it has already been fixed. Let's turn page. Anything other than ball and football will harm us tomorrow or in the future. “

Although Piqu did not close his appearance until he referred to another of the edges of the last crisis. Last week, through his official Twitter account, he described a journalist as “titella“(ttere) of the directive.”Puchilenis, as the Neapolitans say, or tteres are everywhere. We are all in our life. (About the journalist) was evident. I wanted to manifest. But it was not a message to the board. All directives and power have their closest people to whom they pass information and give them the feeling of protection. That's fine. Everyone does it. It is normal. The issue is that when certain lines are passed, you have to step out. It's what I wanted to do. “

No one asked Piqu about the coronavirus, even though it advances without brake through northern Italy, which is already the third country in the world with the highest number of infections after China and South Korea.

In Naples, where Barcelona disputes this Tuesday the first leg of the round of 16 of the Champions League, the situation remains calm for now. To date, no positive has been reported, although the city follows the same security protocols activated throughout the country. Among them, going through a temperature control at the airport -37.5 degrees is the limit temperature-, a measure applied to all planes that come from outside Italy and that the players, of course, also complied with.

“I am not worried only for my team, but for all those affected. I send my solidarity and that of the club. Hopefully this can be solved as soon as possible,” said Quique Setin, a Barcelona technician.

The players, like the other passengers, received some recommendations, such as washing their hands regularly or using disposable cloths in case of congestion.