Chelsea midfielder Cesc Fabregas has admitted his admiration for Barcelona captain Andres Iniesta.
Chelsea meet Barca in the Champions League this week.
Cesc said: “I am still friends with all their players, particularly Andres Iniesta. He's still good. For this type of player age doesn't really matter. Once you have a talent, once you have the class that he and so many other 'big' players have, they can play until their late 30s.
“Physically, it's important, obviously because the game nowadays depends a lot on [how you are] physically. But when you have the quality, when you have the intelligence, it can sometimes compensate.
“Iniesta my idol? You're making him very old! He's only three years older than me. We played with the Spain under-21s together. We've played together from when I was 18 years old.
“I never saw him as an 'idol' because we always played together. I saw him as a team-mate. A person obviously that I admire, but in a different way from an idol I looked up to when I was young."