Sergio Busquets Returns to Barcelona as Coach for Barça Athletic

Sergio Busquets is back at Barcelona. Not on the pitch this time, but on the touchline, beginning the next chapter of his football life with the club’s reserve side.

The 38-year-old has joined Juliano Belletti’s staff at Barça Athletic, the team now competing in Spain’s fourth tier, the Segunda Federación. While he works through his coaching badges, he will serve as part of the technical team charged with a double mission: win promotion and shape the club’s next generation.

It is a far cry from where the reserves once were. As recently as 2018, Barça’s second team played in the Segunda División, rubbing shoulders with historic clubs and operating just one step below LaLiga. Since then, two relegations have dragged them down to the fourth level. Belletti and Busquets inherit a project that carries both urgency and responsibility — restore status, and keep the talent conveyor belt flowing toward the first team.

Familiar Setting

For Busquets, the setting is familiar. He arrived at Barcelona as a teenager in 2005 and quietly learned his trade in the reserves, making 25 appearances before Pep Guardiola pulled him into the senior squad. From that point, his career exploded.

He became the reference point in midfield for more than a decade. Across 722 games for the Catalan club — a figure surpassed only by Lionel Messi and Xavi Hernández — Busquets collected trophies at a rate few can match: nine LaLiga titles, three Champions League crowns, and a haul of domestic and international silverware that defined an era.

International Success

His influence stretched beyond club football. With Spain, he earned 143 caps and anchored the midfield for the La Roja side that conquered the world. He lifted the World Cup in 2010 and the European Championship in 2012, a central piece of the most dominant national team of its time.

When his long stay at Camp Nou ended, Busquets did not head for a quiet retirement. In 2023 he joined Inter Miami, reuniting with former Barcelona teammates and close friends Lionel Messi, Jordi Alba and Luis Suárez in Florida. There, he added a final flourish to his playing career, making 116 appearances and helping Miami win the Leagues Cup in 2023 and the MLS Cup in 2025.

Only then did he call time as a player.

Return to Barcelona

Now he returns to where the journey truly began, swapping the centre circle for the dugout. The badge is the same. The responsibility, in many ways, just as heavy: guide Barça Athletic back to the third tier and prepare the next Busquets, the next Xavi, the next star to step out at Camp Nou.