Pique beats Puyol’s appearance record for Barcelona

Gerard Pique has surpassed Carles Puyol when it comes to Barcelona appearances after making his 594th outing for the Catalan giants on Sunday.

The 35-year-old was named in Xavi’s starting XI for the La Liga match against Espanyol at the RCDE Stadium and moves into fifth place in the club’s all-time appearances list.

Pique is now behind only Lionel Messi, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, and Sergio Busquets when it comes to the players who have featured most for Barcelona.

Pique remains a regular at Barcelona despite turning 35 earlier this month. He’s also featured in 15 of the 16 games that Xavi has taken charge of since replacing Ronald Koeman as coach.

There have been conflicting rumors flying about this week regarding Pique’s future. It had been reported that he’s thinking about retiring at the end of the season, although those rumors were quickly played down elsewhere.

Pique is contracted to Barcelona until 2024 and agreed a “substantial salary cut” last summer which allowed the Catalans to register Memphis, Eric Garcia and Rey Manaj.