It's incredible that time and again we still read that someone to give praise to a player has to in the meantime trash another one. Silly as fvck with the majority of names threw here. Suddenly Kante, Viera an such become trash.
BTW fellas like Rikjaard, Guardiola and Redondo, all different, were also increible versatile midfielders. Pep as a coach has created sadly a notion that he wasn't that much of a player and he was formidable.
Yeah, Guardiola seems to get put down often as a player in recent years. He was excellent talent in his younger years, i watched the Barca vs United 4-0 game quite recently and he dominated Ince and Keane. Probably the injuries and later Serie A doping didn't help his reputation, just when he should have been hitting a peak, he was physically falling apart.
I think because they had such a great generation later, some of the 90s to mid 00s Spanish players get underrated/forgotten by now. Luis Enrique was not really my kind of player, but he was an elite iron-lung versatile box to box in the british mold. Ruben Baraja had a short prime with some big injuries, but first half of the '00s for Valencia he was comparable to any other CM around imo.