FCBARCELONA.CAT

14.12.2007 11:36

Iniesta reaches 200 games

Sergi Nogueras

In Mestalla, Iniesta will play his 200th game for Barça, quite some achievement considering he is only 23 years of age.

It is a long time since October 29, 2002 when Barça played the fifth game of the group stages of the Champions League in Bruges. They had already qualified, and Louis Van Gaal decided to hand a chance to some of the youngsters, including one Andrés Iniesta. Five years later and Iniesta is a regular member of the first team and about to play his 200th official match.

In 7 competitions

These games were played in no fewer than 7 different competitions. Most of them have obviously been in the League, and the Mestalla game will be his 140th. He has also played 36 Champions League matches, 15 in the Copa del Rey, 3 in the UEFA Cup, 3 in the Spanish Super Cup, 2 in the World Clubs Cup and 1 in the Spanish Super Cup.

First to last goals

He has scored 17 goals, and his goalscoring record has been improving. His first official goal came in the 2003-04 Copa del Rey against Levante, where he scored the first goal in a 3-1 win.

Since then he has been scoring more and more, reaching a total of 9 last season: 6 in the league, 1 in the cup and 2 in Europe. He has already scored 3 this term, 2 in the league and one in the Champions League. The most recent of these was at Montjuïc in the 1-1 draw a fortnight ago.

Five titles

Andrés Iniesta has played a direct role in winning five major trophies. The first was the 2004-05 league, followed by the league, Champions League and Spanish Super Cup the season after, and also the Spanish Super Cup in 2006-07.