Sergio Busquets Joins Barça Athletic Coaching Staff

Sergio Busquets is back at Barcelona. Not in midfield this time, but on the touchline, beginning the next chapter of his career with the club’s reserve side.

The 38-year-old has joined Juliano Belletti’s staff at Barça Athletic, who now compete in Spain’s fourth tier, the Segunda Federación. While he works alongside the Brazilian on the training pitch, he will also complete his coaching badges, easing into a role many at the club always felt was waiting for him.

From the dressing room to the dugout

Barça Athletic’s situation is a far cry from where they were not so long ago. As recently as 2018, the reserve team were playing in the second division. Since then, they have slipped two levels, and the task in front of Belletti and Busquets is clear: drag the side back up to the third tier while still delivering what the club values most from its B team — a steady flow of talent ready for the first team.

Busquets knows that pathway better than almost anyone. He arrived at Barcelona as a teenager in 2005, quietly climbing through the youth ranks before making 25 appearances for the reserves. Then came the decisive leap. Under Pep Guardiola, he broke into the senior side and never really left.

What followed was a career that belongs in the club’s highest tier of legend. Busquets played 722 games for Barça, a figure bettered only by Lionel Messi and Xavi Hernández. In that time he collected nine LaLiga titles and three Champions League crowns, anchoring one of the greatest club sides the sport has seen.

A serial winner returns

His influence stretched beyond club football. With Spain, Busquets earned 143 caps and was a central part of the La Roja team that dominated world football, lifting the World Cup in 2010 and the European Championship in 2012.

When his Barcelona story finally closed, he crossed the Atlantic. In 2023 he joined Inter Miami, reuniting with former Camp Nou teammates and close friends Lionel Messi, Jordi Alba and Luis Suárez in Florida. Even in the twilight of his playing days, he remained a decisive presence, making 116 appearances for Miami and helping the club win the Leagues Cup in 2023 and the MLS Cup in 2025 before calling time on his career.

Now he returns to the place that shaped him, charged with shaping others. The setting is smaller, the stadiums more modest, the stakes seemingly lower. Yet for Barcelona’s future, what happens with Belletti, Busquets and Barça Athletic could prove every bit as important as anything under the bright lights of the first team.