Sergio Busquets Returns to Barcelona as Coach
Sergio Busquets is back at Barcelona. This time, with a clipboard instead of a captain’s armband.
The 38-year-old club legend has returned to begin his coaching career with Barça’s reserve side, joining Juliano Belletti’s staff as an assistant while he works through his coaching badges. The team, Barça Athletic, now find themselves in Spain’s fourth tier, the Segunda Federación, a long way from where the club believes they should be.
From dressing room leader to dugout voice
Busquets steps into a very different Barça Athletic to the one he once played for. The reserves were in the second division as recently as 2018, but two relegations have dragged them down to the fourth level of Spanish football. The mission is blunt: get back up, and do it while producing players good enough for the first team.
Belletti and Busquets must juggle both demands. Promotion to the third tier is a clear target, but so is shaping the next generation for the Camp Nou. It is a familiar balance at Barcelona, yet the margin for error is smaller than ever with the club leaning heavily on academy talent.
For Busquets, the setting is not new. He joined Barcelona as a teenager in 2005 and made 25 appearances for the reserves before Pep Guardiola pulled him into the senior squad. From there, he became the pivot of an era.
A career carved into club history
The numbers are staggering. Busquets played 722 games for Barcelona, a total bettered only by Lionel Messi and Xavi Hernández. Across those years he collected nine LaLiga titles and three Champions League trophies, anchoring some of the most dominant midfields the modern game has seen.
On the international stage, he became just as central. Capped 143 times by Spain, he was a key part of the La Roja sides that won the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012, defining a generation of possession football for both club and country.
His final chapter as a player took him across the Atlantic. After leaving Barça, Busquets joined Inter Miami in 2023, reuniting with Messi, Jordi Alba and Luis Suárez in Florida. He made 116 appearances for the MLS club, helping them lift the Leagues Cup in 2023 and the MLS Cup in 2025 before calling time on his playing career.
Now he returns to where it all truly began, back among the hopefuls fighting for a pathway to the first team. The difference? This time, it is Busquets who will be guiding them through the maze he once mastered.
