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Wojciech Szczesny, from Barcelona, is not a common goalkeeper: a frank, unorthodox and smokeing guy. After his retirement, he points to his best season.
Barcelona – Wojciech Szczesny would not believe you if you had told him that he would play the classic at the beginning of the season. He had retired from football, moved to Marbella, in southern Spain, and was more concerned with lowering his handicap in golf. But he can win his second trophy as a Barcelona player this Saturday, when LaLiga's leader faces Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey final in Seville.
Perhaps this change is one of the most unlikely stories of European football this year, it was always the fate of a player who, in many ways, breaks with the trend of modern footballer. Since he arrived at Barcelonahas monopolized so many headlines by smoking, meditating and talking with a refreshing honesty as for his performances, but it is the latter that has put it in the focus of attention for the final stretch of the season.
Perhaps discreetly retiring from the 2024 Eurocup with Poland was not the best option for the former Arsenal goalkeeper and Juventus. Goodbye with a four -titles season in Barcelona would give you a much more appropriate and just final chapter for your career.
“We will see if it is one of the best (football stories ever presented),” said the 35 -year -old to ESPN. “It's interesting. It can become one of the best. We'll see when we talk at the end of May.”
That said, who can say that this is the last chapter?
Deco, the sports director of the BarcelonA, confirmed that they have conversations to extend the contract of Szczesny After summer, which is when it expires. This could give way to a fight for ownership with Marc-André Ter Stegen (who will recover from his injury at any time), although it is unlikely that Szczesny Go so far.
Instead, he wants to continue after the triumph of the Spanish Super Cup in January and now the Copa del Rey on Saturday. Then, he wants to win the UEFA Champions League, where he Barcelona He will face Inter Milan in the semifinals, and LaLiga, where Blaugrana have a four -point advantage over Real Madrid in the absence of five days.
“At this time the goal is obvious,” he said Szczesny. “We are in the final part of the season and we continue in all competitions. I will not lose any game. We want to bring us all the trophies home. Now it is the exciting part of the season, when I begin to feel it.”
Szczesny He was playing golf in Marbella when Ter Stegen suffered a serious knee injury at the end of September, in a league match against Villarreal. The first call was his former partner, the striker of the BarcelonaRobert Lewandowski, to see if he would be available to replace the German goalkeeper. Then he called Deco. And everything changed.
Months before announcing your retirement, Szczesny He said: “I still feel prepared for the challenges, but my heart is no longer there,” after 18 years dedicated to football. Seeing a young team to attack, under coach Hansi Flick, led by Lamine Yamal, Raphinha, Pedri and his old friend Lewandowski, he returned the illusion.
“At first I didn't know, it was very fast, very Ramdom,” he said. “But I watched al Barcelona And I thought: Can this team do something special this season? Yes. Can I forgive me if I say no and do something big? No.
“If I saw this Barcelona from my sofa in Marbella, knowing that I could be part of it, I wouldn't forgive me.”
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After 14 games on the bench with Iñaki Peña as a starting goalkeeper, Szczesny Finally, he debuted in January against the Barbastro of the fourth division by the Copa del Rey. During the following month, Altibajos were presented: he was expelled in his third appearance, the 5-2 victory in the Super Cup against Real Madrid in Saudi Arabia, and then made several mistakes in the Barça comeback 5-4 against Benfica in the Champions League. However, Flick made it clear that he had his support to end any media debate about himself Szczesny or the Ranrano Peña would continue as a number in the absence of Ter Stegen.
It followed a remarkable streak. Barça had lost its last two games of 2024, but at the beginning of 2025 it began a streak of 24 undefeated games, with Szczesny as a goalkeeper in 22 of them. If I had not lost against Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League last week, he would have matched the legend of the club, Johan Cruyff, in third place as the longest undefeated streak (23 games) for a Barça player at the beginning of his career in the club; Only Paulinho (25 games) and Cesc Fàbregas (30 games) had better beginnings.
He has played a total of 25 games, leaving his goal at zero for 13 occasions and fitting 24 goals. Doubts about their ability to play with such an advanced defense have dissipated.
“This is a completely different team from all in Europe, at this time,” he said. “They play very extremely. It is a high -risk game and high reward. I have never played in such a team. Can I adapt? It's a process.
“When you risk and play behind the upper line, you will be wrong. There is no way to avoid mistakes. And, curiously, it happened in the (third) game and they expelled me, but I accepted it.
“I am not here to be conservative. I try to do what the team needs, and the team needs a goalkeeper with enough courage to make those difficult decisions.”
Barça's fans have taken love, although the song they sing is not the one that would be expected: “Szczesny Fumador”. It is a wink to have been Franco with respect to its habit of smoke.
Last weekend, at his 35th birthday party, Anna, his wife, published on social networks a photo of her and Szczesnywith him wearing a cap with the word “smoker” Sharbateada under the visor. During a long interview earlier this year, he joked saying that someone owed him “thank you very much for spending 90 minutes without smoking.”
Even in talk with ESPNhe could not avoid an impromptu comment to praise his team for giving him so little work. “I am very facilitated by work because they want Smoking a cigarette“, said.
Szczesny He acknowledges that it is a bad habit, he says that he would prefer not to talk about it and that people should not follow their example, but they cannot avoid being honest. This allows him to be consistent with everything he says.
Sources detail how his honesty and personality quickly won the respect of his classmates, who know him as “tek”, although he is not still sure why he has been praised by people like Pedri for his behavior in the costume. “It will cost me to explain how funny I am because it will become a comic monologue,” he said Szczesny At a press conference when asked why Pedri had described his partner as a funny character. “Besides, I don't think Pedri understands English very well, so I don't understand why he says it. I just try to be myself.”
It is an attitude that few players have today. While many prefer to be more reserved and reveal as little as possible, Szczesny It is direct, fun and nothing is taken too seriously. When that same press conference began with a question about the possible loss of his position, if Ter Stegen was ready for the game before the season ended, he replied: “Without heating, directly to the questions!”
This contrasts a bit with his quiet personality in the field. “He is almost never nervous,” said Barça's defense, Eric García A ESPN. “It gives us a lot of peace of mind and security to know what is there.” Szczesny attributes that calm to meditation, which began when he was ceded to AS Roma, almost a decade ago. It was a difficult period in his life, since he struggled not to have a future in Arsenal, which, he says, still continues with fervor. He recovered from that downturn to play in Juventus seven years, where he learned from the legend of the club, Gianluigi Buffon, before becoming the number one of the Turin team. Meditation has now become a key part of its pre -party preparation.
“(Ter Stegen's son) thought he was sleeping once,” he said. “Because I am sitting in a very relaxed position, with my eyes closed and everything. It is a bit chaotic before a game, as always. Everyone is changing. This is talking, this, I do not know, with headphones put on, and I am sitting there. And it seems that I am sleeping.” That could be the scene in Barça's locker room on the Cartuja on Saturday: Yamal will enjoy his usual DJ role, encouraging Iñigo Martínez to dance to the rhythm of rapper Morad and Lewandowski to sing the last theme of Ozuna, while Szczesny He closes his eyes, concentrates on his breathing and prepares for the next chapter of his dream return.
“Every story has an end, but in life every final is a new beginning,” he said in a publication on social networks when he retired last summer, without knowing what that new beginning or when he would arrive. “What will hold this new path, only time will say it. But if something has taught me these last 18 years, it is nothing impossible and, believe me, I'm going to dream big!”
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