Gerard Piqué
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Gerard Piqué Bernabeu | ||
| Height | 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in) | ||
| Position(s) | Centre Back, Right back | ||
| Team information | |||
Current team | FC Barcelona | ||
| Number | 15 | ||
| ‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 22 January 2007 | |||
Gerard Piqué Bernabeu (born 2 February 1987 in Barcelona) is a Spanish football player currently playing for Spanish football club FC Barcelona.
Career
Manchester United
Piqué made his debut for Manchester United in October 2004 in the Carling Cup as a late replacement for John O'Shea, in a 3-0 victory at Crewe Alexandra.[1] He made his full debut for Manchester United on 29 March 2006 against West Ham in a Premier League game at Old Trafford playing at right-back, as Gary Neville was unavailable through injury. He even managed to get a shot on goal from 40 yards out which was saved to stop him scoring on his full Premiership debut.
His performances, most notably in the reserve team, earned him a new contract which he signed in February 2005 to run until the summer of 2009.
Piqué was a member of the Spanish under 19 side that won the UEFA Under-19 Championship on 29 July. They beat Scotland U19 2-1 in the final with Piqué putting in a strong performance in defence, hitting the crossbar with a header, and also providing his team's second goal for teammate Alberto Bueno.
On 4 August 2006, Spanish La Liga outfit Real Zaragoza secured Piqué on a season-long loan. The conditions of the loan involved Piqué having to feature in at least 20 games for the Estadio La Romareda outfit.[2]
On 5 May 2007, it was announced that Piqué would be staying at Old Trafford next season. It was intended for Sir Alex Ferguson to be at La Romareda to watch Piqué play on 6 May, in an effort to gauge the youngster's progress, before having a meeting with the player to discuss his future with Man Utd, but this was unable to take place, due to problems with flights.[3]
Piqué's return to Old Trafford, saw him make 9 Premier League appearances during the 2007–08 season.
He scored on his first start in the Champions League in a 4-0 win against Dynamo Kiev played on 7 November 2007 at Old Trafford, Piqué scored the first of Manchester United's 4 goals in that match. In doing so, he became the 450th Manchester United player to score at least one goal for the club.[4] Following his first goal for the club, Piqué got his second in an away match to AS Roma on 12 December.
Barcelona
On Tuesday, May 27, 2008, Pique signed a 4 year contract with FC Barcelona with a €50 million buy-out clause[1]. Barcelona have paid an undisclosed fee for Piqué, rumoured to be around €7 million [2]. The player expressed his joy at re-signing with his boy-hood club, although admitted that he had enjoyed his spell at Manchester United; "I am very happy to be back, I didn't think I would be here again but this is very good for me. Manchester is a great club and I enjoyed winning things. To play with world class players has helped me and now I want to continue this at Barça".
International
Piqué played for Spain in the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup, starting all six of Spain's matches and scoring a goal in the team's come-from-behind 4-2 victory over Brazil in the round of 16[5]. However, Piqué missed the deciding penalty against the Czech Republic and Spain were eliminated at quarter-final stage.
Personal life
The fact that Piqué's maternal surname is Bernabeu has led to some confusion regarding his origins, as he shares his name with the former Real Madrid president Santiago Bernabéu after whom the club's home stadium is named. In fact, the name Bernabeu is of Catalan origin and well spread in Barcelona. Piqué (another typical Catalan surname) is a grandson of the celebrated former vice-president of FC Barcelona, Amador Bernabeu. Piqué is currently dating Joanne Beckham, the sister of David Beckham[citation needed].
Honours
With Manchester United
- FA Premier League - Champions: 2007/08 (Special dispensation)[6]
- UEFA Champions League: 2008
- Football League Cup: 2006
Career statistics
Template:Football player statistics 1 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2004–05||rowspan="3"|Manchester United||rowspan="3"|Premier League||0||0||1||0||1||0||1||0||3||0 |- |2005–06||3||0||2||0||2||0||0||0||7||0 |- |2007–08||9||0||0||0||0||0||3||2||12||2 Template:Football player statistics 2 |- |2006–07||Real Zaragoza||La Liga||22||2||4||1||0||0||0||0||26||3 Template:Football player statistics 312||0||3||0||3||0||4||2||22||2 Template:Football player statistics 422||2||4||1||0||0||0||0||26||3 Template:Football player statistics 534||2||7||1||3||0||4||2||48||5 |}
References
- ^ "Crewe 0-3 Man Utd". BBC Sport. Retrieved May 27.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ "Zaragoza's Pique: My future is with Man Utd". ontheminute.com. Retrieved January 30.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ Ben Hibbs (2005-04-05). "Pique set for OT return". ManUtd.com. Retrieved 2008-05-18.
- ^ "All Goalscorers In All Competitive Matches". StretfordEnd.co.uk. 2007. pp. page 5 of 5. Retrieved 2007-11-08.
{{cite web}}:|pages=has extra text (help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ "Spain-Brazil Match Report". fifa.com. Retrieved 2008-04-02.
- ^ "Bumper Go Figure: Season In Numbers". Football365.com. 2008-05-12. Retrieved 2008-05-25.
External links
- Gerard Piqué at Soccerbase
- Gerard Piqué Blog Template:Es Transclusion error: {{En}} is only for use in File namespace. Use {{langx|en}} or {{in lang|en}} instead.
- Gerard Piqué Profile ON Goal.com Transclusion error: {{En}} is only for use in File namespace. Use {{langx|en}} or {{in lang|en}} instead.