Do we like them?

Do we like Sergio Busquets?

Our score: 7 out of 10. No harmful words or causes turned up and he is on the right side of the ledger, but the record is thin on real good and there are a couple of on-field stains.

Busquets is a Barcelona lifer, the midfielder who made a very hard job look easy for fifteen years. He announced in September 2025 that he would retire at the end of that MLS season with Inter Miami. By August 2026 he was back at Barcelona, a club he had left three years earlier, this time with a clipboard.

The big stain is old. In 2011 Real Madrid's Marcelo alleged that Busquets called him a monkey during a Champions League semi-final, and Madrid submitted statements and video. Barcelona said the actual words were about Marcelo having a lot of nerve, and UEFA's panel rejected the claim, citing “a lack of strong and convincing evidence”. That is a dismissed allegation, not a finding, and it should be read that way. In 2025 he also copped a two-match Leagues Cup ban for violent conduct after the brawl that followed the final against Seattle.

On the harm test, we went looking and came up fairly empty. Coverage of him is almost all football: his retirement, his move to coaching, his years at Barcelona and Miami. We found no statements from him on trans rights, migrants, vaccines or climate, and no sign that he keeps harmful company. That is a pass on what we could find, but it comes from a quiet record, not a loud one.

The coaching move is the recent thing. He is assistant to Belletti with Barcelona's B team and is finishing his coaching badges. It looks like the start of a long second act at the club he is most closely linked to.

His temper on the pitch is a pattern worth noting. In 2012 he was sent off for a late, aggressive challenge in a Champions League game against Benfica and was banned for two European matches by UEFA. Add the 2025 ban and you get a player who plays on the edge, though nothing in the reporting we read points to mistreating staff, team-mates or fans.

On the good stuff, we couldn't open a verifiable page showing charity work of his own, so we're not going to pad it out. That is honestly the whole list, and it is a gap in what we found, not proof he's done nothing.