ANDRES INIESTA

CLUBS

2002-2018 Barcelona

2018- Vissel Kobe

COUNTRY

2006-2018 Spain

Andres Iniesta’s face is all over Kobe. Across Japan’s sixth-largest city, he stares from posters advertising J1 League fixtures, as well as from Tube tickets and packets of biscuits.

Kobe is a compact port city, situated between the sea and the mountains. However, FourFourTwo soon finds out that Vissel Kobe’s training ground is an hour away from the central core. Some 30 hours after leaving Europe for our meeting with Iniesta, we take the last leg of a journey that has involved plane, train, subway, another train and then taxi, turning up 10 minutes before the end of Vissel’s training session.

It’s a cold, sunny day and we’re the only media here. David Villa trots past, then Lukas Podolski. Vissel acquired some stellar names to fill their foreign quota, in an attempt to become Asia’s No.1 club. It didn’t quite go to plan in the league, where they finished 8th in the 18-team division. However, Vissel – a portmanteau of ‘victory’ and ‘vessel’ as a nod to the city’s maritime status – won the Emperor’s Cup in January to reach the Asian Champions League. It was Iniesta’s 26th major trophy.

With training done, the 35-year-old jogs over to say hello, sign a shirt for readers and answer your questions...

Who did you have pinned up on your bedroom wall as a kid?

RedAnt10, via Twitter

Pep Guardiola and Michael Laudrup – they were my idols and I had posters of both. I had one of Michael Jordan as well. He was someone I respected a lot when he played for that famous Chicago Bulls team.

What was life like for you during your early days at La Masia, having joined when you were 12 years old?

Carlos Rodriguez, Barcelona

It was really difficult to be away from my family at such an early age. I had come from a small town, Fuentealbilla, which was a long way from Barcelona in my father’s Ford Orion. I trained the way I always played in the playground, I went to college and I began to adapt, but I can’t pretend that it was easy for me, going from a small town to a huge city like Barcelona.

My family came to visit me, though, and I would go home whenever there was no football. My situation wasn’t unique – I was with some boys who’d travelled from a lot further away than me, although it was nothing like now as Barcelona have many players from around the world.

Hello, Andres. Do you recall when we shared a room at La Masia? We were warm-up partners and also