Jordi Alba, defender and goal creator
Jordi Alba is leaving Barça, after just over a decade in the blaugrana jersey. In that time he has helped to totally rewrite the club's record books, and the numbers speak for themselves.
He has made 457 official appearances since returning to his boyhood club in 2012, which could be as many as 459 by the end of his last season.In that time has scored 26 goals and given 91 assists. No other Barça defender has ever been involved in anything like that number of goals for the team.
In La Liga, a competition he has won six times, he has either scored or assisted i78 goals. A record not just for Barça, but for any team since there are available stats. That's a full 16 more than Marcelo and 18 more than Sergio Ramos, the two Real Madrid players who place second and third on the list.
Striker after striker has benefitted from Alba's ability to create goal opportunities, but none more so than Leo Messi. The Catalan's sprints down the run to then cut the ball back to the Argentinian from the by-line became an iconic image at Barça, repeated time and time again.
Messi scored no fewer than 23 goals off passes from Jordi Alba. But he was not alone. Luis Suárez was another major beneficiary, scoring 20 goals off assists from the same man. More recently, Alba's most common target has been Ansu Fati, who he has assisted 7 times.
Jordi Alba is a player who will go down in club folklore. We still have two more chances to enjoy him in what's left of the current season. Moments to be savoured along with all the wonderful memories that the player is leaving behind him.