Interview to radio barcelona, translation from totalbarca:
It wasn’t that long ago that Isaac Cuenca must have been feeling on top of the world. He had broken into the Barça first team, getting significant minutes under legendary boss Pep Guardiola. Unfortunately, the story since has been rather different. A awful streak of injuries has set his career back and he was entirely overlooked by Gerardo Martino. Cuenca spoke on
Ràdio Barcelona recently and gave a reveling personal interview as well offering some seriously interesting sounds bites regarding training methods in recent seasons and Xavi as player-manager.
Even though the indications are Luis Enrique isn’t planning next season with Cuenca in mind, the winger makes it clear he wants to stay. “
I don’t know Luis Enrique’s intentions but mine are to stay here. I would be delighted if he let me join pre-season and he could observe me. After all that’s happened, to leave like this would be sad. I’ve started believing in myself again but I need to be training properly again, competing and playing some games to make me feel like a footballer again. These two years of injury have been long, very long but I think there is light at the end of the tunnel now.“
Cuenca was bothered by what he felt was ostracism by Martino. “It was a very strange season. There were times during the season that trainings weren’t intense. For example, when we all thought we were out of the league, the intensity of trainings dropped and then some time later again improved.” This next sound bite is what I found most personally revealing. “You have to work a lot on positional play [to get it right], every week, so that you don’t forget. With Guardiola we did that, but with the others we didn’t”.
He was asked his opinion on the depurates of club icons like Víctor Valdes, Carles Puyol, Cesc Fàbregas and possibly Xavi Hernández. “
It surprises me that so many players that gave such an enormous amount of weight in the dressing room are leaving. It greatly surprised me that Xavi is going to Qatar. He could play another year for sure.“
Finally, Cuenca seems to confirm that Tata Martino had decided to resign by February already and that Xavi was set to take over as player-manager. “It surprised me that Tata planned on reigning. If February we still had everything to play for.“
Part in bold is revealing... Tata really wasn't suited for the job. A bad choice of manager ruined the season.