FCBARCELONA.CAT

17.11.2008 17:46

Piqué racks up eleven starts

Berta Brau

Gerard Piqué made his eleventh start of the season against Recreativo. The defender is carving out a place for himself in Guardiola’s side and is now the second most-used signing.

Gerard Piqué is certainly making his mark on his return to Barça. In spite of his youth and relatively lack of experience of top flight football, the ex-Man United player has become a key part of the Barcelona defence and has more than 1,000 minutes of game time with the first team.

Eleven starts

Eleven games and eleven starts are his record this season and he has only missed three of Barça’s last twelve fixtures. Seven of those games have been in the League, with three more in the Champions League and one in the Spanish Cup.

Good in attack and defence

Piqué has already shown his class. A committed defender, he is also more than willing to get forward where at 1.92 m tall he has proved particularly dangerous in the air.

Just one card

He’s also demonstrated that you can be a good defender without having to play dirty or aggressively. In fact he’s only picked up one yellow card this season, in the first Champions League group game against Sporting Lisbon.