Only two people, Sergio Busquets has said, could make him leave Barcelona. One is his partner, Elena Galera, and the other is the soon-to-be Manchester City manager, the man that handed him his Camp Nou bow in 2008, Pep Guardiola.
After Busquets committed his long-term future to Barca on Friday, though, penning a deal until 2021 with an option for two further years, it would appear neither have shown any intention of playing their part in moving the midfielder away from Catalonia. But perhaps what is most eye-catching about the new terms is that Busquets' buy-out clause has risen to €200million -- a sign of just how highly valued he is within his club.
Talks over the deal had been ongoing for several months. Barca president Josep Maria Bartomeu had promised a contract renewal and, eventually, he delivered on his words. However, there were times during the process when Busquets supposedly grew frustrated with the speed of the talks.
Those frustrations just so happened to coincide with those comments suggesting Guardiola -- who had already been revealed as Manuel Pellegrini's heir in Manchester -- could possibly wrestle him away from the Blaugrana. "He knows my club is Barca and he knows it's best for me and the club to stay here, so I don't think he will ask for me [at City]," nuanced the 27-year-old.
However, it still led to links with a move to the Premier League side. Busquets has always maintained that he doesn't see himself leaving Barca, though, and the reality is he was never likely to look for a transfer. Busquets' comments -- and the City story that followed -- were at best clumsy; at worst it was a ploy to get Bartomeu and the Barca board to get the wheels spinning a little quicker on his new deal. He was never expected to push for an exit, and the club were certainly not prepared to see him depart.
With Xavi Hernandez gone and Andres Iniesta heading towards his mid-30s -- admittedly in an extremely graceful fashion -- Busquets' importance to this Barca side grows by the day. An editorial in a local newspaper on the day of his renewal called him the player "everyone wants to be," lauding the balance he adds to Luis Enrique's team.
That's a common viewpoint in and around the club. There are no doubts regarding just how fundamental he is. In what has been a period of slight change -- in terms of the style on the pitch at least -- he remains a bastion of "The Barca Way," contrasting and linking with the new faces and ideas presented by Neymar, Luis Suarez and Ivan Rakitic.
With 69.2 passes per game, only two players in La Liga averaged more than Busquets this season -- Real Madrid's Toni Kroos and Rayo Vallecano's Roberto Trashorras. Long gone are the days of Xavi and Iniesta accounting for nearly 200 passes between themselves over 90 minutes of football, but Busquets remains dedicated to the cause. He made 2,316 passes in his 35 league games this season in his role in front of Barca's back four, shielding the centre-backs. He also made 67 interceptions, completed 73 tackles and laid the foundation for many a Barcelona attack.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2015, Busquets explained his role by saying it is "more about being tactically astute than physically dominant: thinking, calculating, offering solutions, defensively and offensively. Control everything. Positioning is key. Barcelona's style means that defensively you deal mainly with counter-attacks -- not stopping them, preventing them. If you defend high, it's a long way back towards your own goal, so you need to prevent those breaks."
Those who have worked with him or seen him regularly up close and personal appreciate what he does. The control. The positioning. Johan Cruyff called him a veteran who makes the difficulty appear easy. Guardiola and Luis Enrique are both fans, while Spain boss Vicente del Bosque said if he could come back as any current player, he would come back as Busquets.
Outside of Barcelona, somewhat strangely, there still is not quite the same recognition. Wesley Sneijder, Angel Di Maria, Kroos and Paul Pogba are among the midfielders to have been named in a FIFPro World XI since Busquets won six trophies in 2009 with Barca and the World Cup with Spain in 2010. Countless more titles have followed, but the individual honours have not. He was omitted from UEFA's list of nominees for the best midfielder of 2015 last year. Sevilla duo Yevhen Konoplyanka and Grzegorz Krychowiak were on the 12-man shortlist, as was Bayer Leverkusen's Hakan Calhanoglu. Busquets, though? Nowhere to be seen.
Elsewhere, he also seems to divide fan opinion. A search on Twitter for 'Busquets' and 'overrated' will normally throw up some interesting opinions. The same search on Google still finds articles from various websites listing him among the world's most overrated players, too. Not that Busquets allows himself to lose any sleep over that. He doesn't crave that sort of recognition. "I care more about the praise from my coaches and team-mates," he said last November.
In the meantime, Busquets will keep doing what he's doing for club and for country, which has led to a trophy-laden career until this point.
"I don't want people talking about me, for good or bad. I don't do many interviews. I don't have Twitter," he said. "Forwards get the plaudits and goals are football's essence. But I'm not selfish like that, I don't long for praise or the lead role. I'd rather the strikers scored [than me]; they live off goals. I don't care. If I did, I wouldn't play in this position. I love my role; I love the job I do."
Barca love the job he does, too, as proved by last week's new contract, which will keep him among the biggest earners at the club. And their recognition is all that matters to him for now. Their 200 million man isn't going anywhere.