Barcelona rediscover Fati
Hope appeared on a Sunday afternoon, light let in at last. Just that smile would have been enough, the look of this kid stepping back on to the pitch 323 days later, taking it all in like it was the first time; the look of every kid everywhere stepping into a football stadium for the first time, overwhelmed yet inspired, at once tiny and huge.
Ansu Fati though doesn’t do enough and doesn’t do waiting, so there was more. The youngest player ever to score for Barcelona and for Spain, the boy who found the net 111 seconds into his first Camp Nou start, finally headed back out there on the day he said was like a debut and by the time he came off again he had another goal.
It hadn’t taken 10 minutes and it was impossible not to be carried along by it all. “You dream but I didn’t really imagine it like this,” Fati admitted. If it had been his debut, the shot from the edge of the area in the 90th minute that completed a 3-0 victory over Levante would have made him the seventh youngest goal-scorer in Barcelona’s history. Instead, it was his 44th and, his meniscus torn in November, he had been under the knife four times, visited doctors in three different countries, and been out of action for 11 months. A lot has changed since then, a lot loaded on to him. He is still only 18 and looks it but he came on wearing 10 and rose above it all, teammates lifting him to the sky to be seen by all and embraced by everyone. They had needed this too. There is something about Ansu. Not just the talent, although there’s plenty of that. Not just the moment or Barcelona’s need, although there’s even more of that. But something else: something in his story perhaps; something in his age, in the freshness, the excitement, maybe the simplicity too; something, certainly, in the suffering of the last year. All of which creates a connection, a rare affection that goes even beyond Barcelona, a warmth seen in the reaction that feels like it makes him everyone’s and which saw his return eclipse everything on Sunday. As Levante manager Pablo López said: “We didn’t enjoy it much but we’re happy for football that he’s back.”
It was seen even before he scored. The clock at the Camp Nou showed 79.56 when Luuk de Jong headed just over the bar, but by then a lot of the people inside the ground weren’t really watching the game any more, now in a state of suspended animation. For a while attention had been drawn instead to the touchline where Fati was waiting to return. He embraced Ronald Araújo, rubbed his face - yes, it’s really happening - and on 80.21 ran on wearing a smile that was awe, a kind of childlike wonder, eyes wide and hardly able to believe he was actually here. The 35,334 fans stood and handed him an ovation and he clapped back, raised his left hand and placed his right over his heart. Then for the first time in almost a year he played.
And, boy, did he play. Levante immediately had three good chances – one over, one saved, one into the side netting – as if Fati’s introduction had momentarily broken Barcelona’s concentration but soon he was up and running, the way he always had. “Daring,” Ernesto Valverde had called him and, somehow, injury hasn’t changed that. “I was waiting, thinking: ‘I can enjoy it again,’” he said and it showed. On 83.53, his first touch, he turned Jorge Miramón, cut inside towards the area and fired off a shot that was blocked. On 84.12, he dashed into the box and was brought down by Pablo Martínez. The referee said no when he might have said yes, which was familiar too. The same had happened on his Camp Nou start. “Have a look,” Fati said. The referee didn’t, but everyone else did. They couldn’t take their eyes off of him.