At the age of 35, Eric Abidal has officially announced his retirement from professional football. As a player, the Frenchman meant so much to so many people. I’ll never encapsulate it all in a written tribute, but I can try.
Eric Abidal began his career playing for Lyon Duchere before moving to AS Monaco and making his Ligue 1 debut in 2000. His journey took him to Lille, where his name became more prominent among the country’s up-and-coming defenders. An eventual move back to his hometown to represent Olympique Lyonnais thrusted him into household status. But if Abidal’s early French years made him a prized asset, it was his time in Spain that made him a legend.
Abidal’s first year in La Liga was a bust. Much was expected of the defender after his impressive showings for Lyon and France — including being an integral part of the 2006 squad that made the World Cup final in Germany — but the football just didn’t immediately click in Barca. But what did click that season for Barcelona? Finishing the season in third place, nearly twenty points away from champions Real Madrid was enough for Frank Rijkaard, Ronaldinho, and Deco to all lose their jobs. It’s fair to say that Barca wasn’t a fun place to be in 2007/08. But things would change, for Barca and for Abidal.
The promotion of Barca B coach and former club captain Pep Guardiola changed the game for everyone, least of not Abidal. Under the new boss’s tutelage, and with a full Liga campaign under his belt, the Frenchman grew into a pillar. Deployed mostly as a leftback, Abidal affirmed his role as the defensive flagship atop the symphony of football that was Guardiola’s Barcelona.
It’s true that Abidal is as easily synonymous with Pep’s dream team as Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta, or Lionel Messi, and there’s absolutely zero pretension in that statement. Yes, those sides needed a left-sided defender, but he was more than just a squad filler. His assured feet and mind were the benefactors of so much of Barca’s domination during that era. Dani Alves’ freedom to bomb down the right flank could’ve only happened with Abidal’s symmetrical discipline. Pedro, Thierry Henry, and David Villa having the liberty to focus so intently on attacking down the left only worked because of Abidal’s watchman presence behind them. Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique growing into fearless, transitional ball-handlers only occurs with the trustworthy outlet of Abidal always there. Without the Frenchman, the football couldn’t have been as total, nor the taka as tiki.
I’ll never shake the general image of Abidal on-the-ball strongarming, or rather tormenting, an opposing winger while shielding the entire outside world from the mastery between his boots. Within the church of Guardiola, that image should exist as one of the stations of the cross. Nobody played out of the back like Eric, which is why (among a few other reasons) Barcelona’s willingness to let him leave in 2013 was quite bewildering.
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Even more than the on-pitch supremacy, over his time in Catalunya, Abidal became family. When he was diagnosed with a liver tumour in 2011, the entire region wept for him. “Animo Abidal” shirts were donned by clubs all over Europe, Real Madrid included. In true Abidal fashion, he returned from surgery two months later to star for 90 minutes in Barcelona’s 3–1 Champions League final victory over Manchester United, one of the finest moments in the club’s history. In true Carles Puyol fashion, the captain forfeited his blessed armband to Abidal and let the Frenchman hoist the trophy before anyone else. Family.
When it was announced the following year that Abidal needed a liver transplant, the sense of family revealed itself even further. Dani Alves offered to be a donor for his teammate, his brother. In the end, it was Abidal’s cousin who contributed. Family.
Abidal’s Barcelona career certainly wasn’t the start of his story, but it felt like the cap of it. His last couple of seasons spent with Monaco, and most recently Olympiakos, lacked the promise and stability required for such a seasoned veteran. Thus is often the tale for aging defenders; they become stopgaps, polished scabs meant to ease the transition for a club’s younger talents. But regardless of how unceremoniously it ended, Abidal had a towering career.
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On a professional football pitch, you can’t succeed just being selfless. It doesn’t work that way. There’s a confidence and an excellence that’s mandatory when you’re practicing at the highest level. And the only way an unselfish player can thrive is if his or her role requires such an attribute. Zlatan Ibrahimovic doesn’t help his teammates by being unselfish (it’s perhaps why the Swede didn’t mesh with Guardiola’s program). His strengths are revealed when he demands the ball and calls the shots, figuratively and literally. Within Barca’s philosophy, unselfishness isn’t an exception, but a cornerstone. Symbolically so, Abidal, acting as the unforgiving leftback post of Barca’s tiki-taka foundation, kept his end of the bargain more than anybody. He was a rock, a steady force that would always be there to relieve pressure for everyone else.
It was his demeanor too. I’ve always swooned watching NBA great Ray Allen, the way he would sink an impossibly perfect three-pointer, then backpedal to his defensive role while managing to keep a stonecold glare on his face, a glare that was equal parts calm and intense. It was incredible because it wasn’t something he had to manage, his intensity was built into his character just as the wrist-flick was figured into his physiology. Abidal had and has that same quality of impression. You never questioned whether or not he was focused or committed. My heart skipped everytime he ceremoniously prayed before a match, his spirituality seemingly intertwined with the matter of his being. His play would mimic that same vigor, making his greatness undeniable.
It feels right that Abidal could return to Barcelona as a coach. In many ways, his virtue isn’t something that can be taught, just as another dream team isn’t something that can be bought. But he has so much to offer younger generations of footballers just by being who he is: a cancer survivor, a retired anchor of the greatest team of all-time, and, as so many have attested to in these final days of his playing career, a brother.
