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On Friday, Andres Iniesta’s first season in Japan will come to a close following Vissel Kobe’s home match against Vegalta Sendai. Given Kobe’s mid-table standing, it’s certainly been a new experience for the Barcelona legend, but attendance is up 17.4 percent at the club and Iniesta has contributed two goals and three assists in 13 appearances.
Last Friday, he provided a truly beautiful assist during Kobe’s 3-3 draw with Shimizu S-Pulse (0:10 in the video below).
And the 34-year-old recently spoke with Spanish broadcaster laSexta regarding his decision to leave Barcelona for Japan on a three-year contract.
“It is a relief knowing that the decision was the right one,” he said. “The difficulty would be in thinking whether I still wanted to be there. I wish I could have played all my life at Barca, but I was not able to give my 100 percent to Barca any more.”
Iniesta also spoke about his less memorable times with Barcelona, including the depression he experienced following the historic treble-winning 2008-09 season and the bad blood that threatened to ruin the Spanish national team while Jose Mourinho was manager of Real Madrid.
With regards to his mental health in 2009 — something Iniesta briefly mentioned in his book The Artist: Being Iniesta — the midfielder had this to say about his frame of mind and if he’d ever thought about taking his own life:
"Yes, you are talking about very extreme situations. Not because I wanted to do it or even thought of doing it, but because you are not yourself. I know that when you are very vulnerable it is difficult to control moments and things happen in moments, in seconds, they are decisions that you make because you are not well.
"I was in treatment during some time with (Barca psychologist) Inma (Puig). I will always remember that I had an appointment at 4 p.m. and I was so desperate for it that I would arrive at 3:45. It all started after winning the Treble with Barca that summer. You score the goal against Chelsea, you win the Champions League, you win three trophies, an unbelievable year ... and then comes the summer and you start feeling down.
"There is something wrong but you don't know what it is. And you start an internal process, thinking you feel bad but you do not know why. You have some tests and everything is fine, but you don't feel well and you enter a loop in which you end up feeling very empty. And then what happened with Dani Jarque (the former Espanyol captain who died of a heart attack during preseason training at the age of 26).
"I remember that we came back from that preseason and one afternoon I was at home and I felt really bad. I called Dr. Pruna and told him that we do something or I don't know what's going to happen. I was not myself.
"And that same afternoon we went to training ground and I said to him: 'I need help, I need something ... I need something because otherwise I won't get out of this slump.' I wanted it to get to night time so that I could take a pill and sleep."
With regards to Mourinho’s influence in El Clásico, Iniesta had this to say: “You do not have to support Barcelona or Real Madrid to see that this situation was unpleasant and there was a key component in that story which was Mourinho. Anyone who refuses to see it this way goes beyond radicalism.
“It got to a point where surreal things happened: it caused a lot harm in the national team and among teammates. We weren't seeing the usual rivalry — it was more like hatred. It went way beyond that. He was cultivating an unbearable environment."
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