Former Barcelona midfielder Sergio Busquets has returned to the club to begin his coaching career with the reserve team in the Spanish fourth tier.
Busquets, 38, will form part of manager Juliano Belletti’s staff this season while he completes his own coaching badges.
Barça Athletic were in the second division as recently as 2018, but have since dropped two levels into the Segunda Federación.
Belletti and Busquets’ task is to steer the team back into the third tier at the same time as developing young talent for the first team.
Busquets joined Barcelona as a teenager in 2005 and made 25 appearances himself for the reserve team before breaking into the senior side under Pep Guardiola.
He subsequently went on to make 722 appearances for the Catalan club — only Lionel Messi and Xavi Hernández have made more — and won nine LaLiga titles and three Champions Leagues among many other trophies as a player.
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Capped 143 times by Spain, he also part of the La Roja side which won the World Cup in 2010 and the European Championships in 2012.
Upon leaving Barça, he joined Inter Miami in 2023, where he spent the final years of his career playing alongside former teammates at Camp Nou and close friends Lionel Messi, Jordi Alba and Luis Suárez.
In total, he made 116 appearances for Miami, helping the Florida club win the Leagues Cup in 2023 and the MLS Cup in 2025 before retiring as a player.
