Bojan Krkic and the discovery of the freedom of the bicycle

There was a time when a very large part of those who called themselves, they say, “football experts” considered Bojan Krkic a player on the launch pad to become one of the best strikers in the world. Obvious prediction, or so it seemed, for a player who scored one goal after another with the Barcelona youth shirt. And then the so-called “cantera” of Barcelona was considered the top of the top of European youth football, a sort of Eden for scouting future champions. Bojan Krkic scored so much – in eight years at La Masia he scored 648 goals in competitive matches, almost three goals per game on average – that he seemed destined to be another Messi. Not bad to have two Messi in the team, they were thinking of Barcelona.

There were no two Messi in the Blaugrana shirt. Bojan Krkic had a good first year: 10 goals in 31 La Liga games, one goal in nine Champions League games, not bad for someone who came of age that season. She was also the only one to put memories and data back in line. Bojan Krkic didn’t start doing well. Then Barcelona started not doing well either.

Bojan Krkic has traveled here and there in Europe first, then in the world, he has never managed to realize the projects that others had for him and that he himself probably had for himself. To sum up, ninety-three career goals for someone like him is little stuff. They didn’t expect it, he didn’t expect it, for it to end like this. Because it ended like this. Bojan Krkic has decided to retire from football. At thirty-two, after a life in which he did not experience adolescence, in which he found himself at the center of expectations greater than himself. Easy enough for someone who’s five foot seven and sixty pounds.

The problem is that Bojan Krkic has never had peace, perhaps he hasn’t even allowed himself any. He has chased throughout his career, or at least much of it, a portrait of himself that did not fit him. He found himself tangled in a ball of hopes gone bad, promises not kept, enthusiasm vanished. He looked for a solution, he didn’t find it. He understood that he wouldn’t be able to find her, at least not with the ball at his feet.

However, Bojan Krkic understood that there was a way out of all this. And he always had it there in front of those bicycles that he kept in the garage, on which he pedaled and had always pedaled. “I have always liked the bike, even as a means of transport. Whenever I could I got on the saddle, it wasn’t a problem for football: the bike is better for my profession than running or swimming, it allows you to prepare or even recover if you have any problems. It has no impact,” he told Marca. “Before I mostly went mountain biking, but then I fell in love with gravel. I usually do two or three hour routes, especially on weekends, but often also in the morning on other days. While pedaling you feel free”.

He found in the bicycle what football could no longer give him. The serenity while doing something you like. Thirty-two is a good age to change, to throw yourself headlong into a new occupation. Especially when he has already undertaken it years before without being completely aware of it. Llast year he had decided to invest in a bicycle brand, which was launched in February: GUAVA. The idea had come from David Álvarez and Nacho Suárez, two friends with 25 years of experience in the bike sector, and it was made a reality also thanks to the Never say never Ventures (NSN), Andrés Iniesta’s business incubator.

Farewell to football could be an opportunity to do something else, not just an entrepreneur. “I don’t have anything definitive planned yet, but some ideas. Being involved in this project gives me the possibility to connect with cycling. It’s a good way to combine sport and social activity. Then who knows”. He could compete. He could. He thought about it, he’s thinking about it. Gravel is an expanding world, even in competitions. There was a time when Bojan Krkic was also an expanding world. It didn’t really go like this. But maybe he was just wrong sport.