It wasn’t so wrong, Hristo Stoichkov, when a few days ago he said that “Riquelme did not succeed in Barcelona because of the idiot Louis Van Gaal”. Not because of the epithet he used to describe the Dutch coach: the Bulgarian’s success seems to have been conceptual, since Gaizka Mendieta, who was a partner of the current vice president of Boca in the club of Catalonia, publicly stated that Juan Román could have been a quiet partner of Andrés Iniesta, Xavi and Lionel Messi in a historic culé team.
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“If Riquelme could have fit into Pep Guardiola’s Barsa? I think so, “said the Bilbao without hesitation, a historic Valencia midfielder -he played from 1992 to 2001- who had a time at Barcelona in the 2002/03 season (he played 47 games, five more than Román; like the Argentine he scored six goals).
However, Mendieta He clarified in dialogue with 90min.com that “I don’t know if (Riquelme) could have done it like in Boca or Villarreal, because that team divided the game a lot between Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets and Messi ”, so finding “a site in this scheme in which he would have participated a great deal is not very clear to me.” But, beyond the positional, he asserted that “Could have surrounded himself with players of his level” who “they would have helped him to shine absolutely” in that historic cycle of Guardiola in front of the Barcelona (he won three Leagues, two King’s Cups, three Spanish Super Cups, two Champions, two European Super Cups and two Club World Cups).
Mendieta played 47 games with the Barcelona shirt during the 2002/03 season.
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Mendieta, 46 years old and a former member of the Spanish National Team (he played in the 2002 World Cup), in turn was compared to his own Riquelme since – like him – it did not end up taking shape in Van Gaal’s last tactic. “Román was a similar case to mine. As a player it was spectacular, I was and am a great admirer of yours. I think that the system that was imposed on the team was not the most suitable for their style of play, “he said, clarifying that the current leader of Boca he would end up finding his best version at Villarreal.
“There they played for him, the ball was constantly in contact and he was the one who set the pace, just like he did in Boca”highlighted Mendieta, who in the European summer of 2008 would hang up his booties after four and a half seasons in England’s Middlesbrough.
The words of Mendieta confirm that Riquelme He could have made history in Barcelona, where -according to the Catalan media Mundo Deportivo- he would have suffered a boycott by the leaders of the Blaugrana squad so that he had no participation.
