Practically impossible to replace Iniesta: Denis Suarez

Bengaluru, May 25: Barcelona midfielder Denis Suarez claims that Andres Iniesta’s departure will create a big gap in the team and he also believes that it will be practically impossible to replace him with another player.

As per Marca, Suarez spoke about his former Barcelona captain and said about the huge void it would create in the Barca line up, "It will be a big gap to be filled, in football, personal and human terms with the departure of our captain. He will be remembered as a legend. On a football level, it is a big vacuum because he was here for a lot of years and leaves an important legacy.

"On a human level in the dressing room, he is our captain and while someone will take his place, we wish him all the best as he deserves it.

"(I have learnt) lots of things. He is a player that also is in my position and I focused on him in each training session, en each detail, what he does in games so as to improve. I think it will be practically impossible to replace him with another player but it is what we face."

In the recently concluded season, Barcelona had an impressive performance under the new manager Ernesto Valverde. They dominated the La Liga and also won the Copa del Rey. In fact, Barcelona almost finished their entire La Liga season unbeaten, but lost to Levante on 37th match-day.

They had a stunning run domestically, but suffered a shocking UEFA Champions League exit from the quarter-finals after the away-leg defeat to the Italian Serie A club AS Roma. However, Denis believes that they can win the UCL crown next season along with another domestic double.

Talking about their performance during the season, Denis said, "It has been a very good season and in the end, we won the double, the seventh league title in ten years and we have won several cups on the trot now.

"Clearly the Champions League upset has marked the season a little because at Barcelona when you lose a game it is as though everything has gone wrong and we lost in the worst kind of way.

"Hopefully next year we can win the double again and also add the Champions League."

While Suarez played lesser games this season, he looks at the positive point which was that he played more minutes in the final period of the season.

"Clearly I expected to play more and I am not happy with this as you always want more. I have had periods where I have played more and other when I was less involved and I prefer to remember the more positive which was the final month of the season when I had more minutes on the pitch," concluded Suarez.