Juventus right-back Dani Alves: Barcelona are 'still in my blood'

Juventus right-back Dani Alves has told The Players' Tribune that Barcelona are "still in my blood" ahead of taking on old rivals Real Madrid in Saturday's Champions League final.

Alves, 34, spent eight years at Barcelona between 2008 and 2016, during which he won a host of trophies including three Champions Leagues and six La Liga titles.

The Brazil international left for Juventus last summer, having felt undervalued by the Barca board, though he said he forever remains a Blaugrana fan.

"The truth is that Barcelona is still in my blood," Alves wrote in The Players' Tribune. "Was I disrespected by the board of directors before I left the club last summer? Absolutely. That is simply how I feel, and you can never tell me any different.

"But you cannot play for a club for eight years, and achieve everything that we did, and not have that club in your heart forever. Managers, players and board members come and go. But Barca will never go away.

"Before I went to Juventus, I made a final promise to the board at Barcelona. I said, 'You're going to miss me.' I didn't mean as a player. Barca have plenty of incredible players. What I meant was that they were going to miss my spirit. They were going to miss the care I had for the dressing room. They were going to miss the blood I spilled every time I put on the shirt."

Alves played for four years at Barca under Pep Guardiola, who he hails as one of the biggest influences on his career.

"If you turn the word 'computer' backwards, it spells 'Steve Jobs.' If you turn the word 'football' backwards, it spells 'Pep,'" Alves wrote. "He is a genius. I'll say it again. A genius.

"Pep would tell you exactly how everything was going to happen in a match before it even happened. For example, the game against Real Madrid in 2010, when we won 5-0? Pep told us before the match, 'Today, you're going to play like the football is a ball of fire. It never stays at your feet. Not even a half second. If you do that, there will be no time for them to pressure us. We will win easily.'

"The sensation when we left every one of his prematch talks was like we were already up 3-0. We were so empowered, so prepared, that it felt like we were already winning.

"The funniest thing was if we came in at halftime and the game wasn't going well. Pep would sit down and rub his forehead. You know how he rubs his head? You've seen it, right? Like he's massaging his brain, searching for the genius to come to him. He would do this right in front of us in the dressing room.

"Then, like magic, it would come to him. Bang! 'I've got it!' Then he would jump up and start barking out instructions, drawing maths and figures on the board. 'We will do this, this and this, and then this is how we will score.' So we would go out, and we would do this, this and this. And that's how we would score. It was crazy."

Alves also took inspiration from another key figure during his time at Barcelona -- his teammate Lionel Messi.

"I remember during one training session, Messi was doing things with the ball at his feet that defied logic," he wrote. "Of course, that is what he did every day. Only this time, something was different.

"Now, I need to remind you, this was an extremely intense training session. We were not messing around. Messi was dribbling through the defence and finishing like a killer. And then as he's running past me, I look down at his cleats [shoes], and I'm thinking to myself, 'Is this a joke?'

"He comes running past again, and I think, 'No, it's impossible.' He comes running past again, and now I'm sure what I'm seeing. His damn cleats are untied. Both of them. I mean completely untied. This guy is playing against the best defenders in the world, just floating around the pitch, and he's acting like it's a Sunday in the park. That was the moment when I knew that I was never going to play with someone like him ever again in my life."

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