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Barcelona hero and club legend, Andres Iniesta, is currently the longest-serving player on Barcelona's entire roster. The Spanish superstar joined the club as a youngster and is a product of the club's famed academy, La Masia.
The rest, as they say, is history, as Iniesta broke into the senior team in 2002, making just 9 and 17 appearances respectively across all competitions in his first two seasons with the senior team.
Since then, there has simply been no turning back. Iniesta has since become nothing short of a cult figure and has been hailed widely as one of the best players to have graced the game.
After a period of 16 long seasons with the club that witnessed him lift an astonishing total of 31 trophies, including 8 La Liga titles and 4 UEFA Champions League titles.
Today, Iniesta revealed his intentions to leave the club and move to China once the ongoing season culminates, and as expected, people from all over the world flocked to social media to have their say - some to thank the Spanish wizard for all his contributions, while some took to social media to express their disappointment to see Iniesta go.
As usual, Twitter was the place to be as pundits, players and fans, alike, took to the platform to express their opinions and feelings, while the rest presented themselves to bid farewell to one of the greatest icons this beautiful game has ever seen.
On that note, here is a look at some of the best tweets we found:
The media room exploded into applause after Iniesta's press conference, which just goes to show how significant Iniesta has been to Barcelona and the club's fans, as well as to most people who are hopelessly in love with the game.
Club president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, also had some choice words to express his gratitude:
Former partner and fellow legendary midfielder Xavi also weighed in on the situation
Other footballers also took to Twitter to pay homage to the great man
We at Sportskeeda wish Andres Iniesta all the very best for the future and would like to thank him for simply existing during our time.
Thank you for everything, Andres. You've changed the world of football more than most.
#GraciasAndres
