Iniesta’s qualities make him a formidable player regardless of his age, according to Cesc Fabregas. Fabregas has no doubt Iniesta remains a fine player, especially as he has rarely had to rely on physical qualities in his career.
Fabregas will face his former team-mate and compatriot when the Catalans visit Stamford Bridge for the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie on Tuesday.
“He’s still good; for this type of player, age doesn’t really matter,” said Fabregas.
“Once you have a talent, once you have the class that he and so many other ‘big’ players have, they can play until their late 30s.
“Physically, it’s important, obviously because the game nowadays depends a lot on that. But when you have the quality, when you have the intelligence, it can sometimes compensate.”
Asked if Iniesta was an idol for Fabregas as a Barca youth product, he replied: “You’re making him very old! He’s only three years older than me.
“We played with the Spain Under-21s together. We’ve played together from when I was 18 years old.
“I never saw him as an ‘idol’ because we always played together. I saw him as a team-mate. A person obviously that I admire, but in a different way from an idol I looked up to when I was young.
“I used to look up to [Pep] Guardiola because he was playing in my position; I used to love Luis Figo when he was at Barcelona. These two were probably the ones I looked up to most when I was little.
“But this generation of Spanish players, and not only Spanish players, in Barcelona has been fantastic.”
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