46 Big-club protégés

Barcelona

In a sentence

Creative midfielder cut from the Xavi/ Andres Iniesta cloth: small of stature yet huge in ability.

What they say

Sergio Espejo, his coach as a schoolboy at the Unio Jabac club: “What he did when he was young is now being repeated at the Camp Nou. He was not afraid of anything. He was especially daring, a different sort of talent.”

Barcelona B boss Xavi Garcia Pimienta: “He has an inborn talent. He’s overflowing with vision and cheek. He doesn’t know fear. He doesn’t care if a tall opponent is towering over him. He believes in himself. He has that Barca DNA.”

The story so far

Born in August 1999 in Matadepera, a small Catalan town 50km north of Barcelona, he had his first taste of organised football at the age of eight with the Unio Jabac club in nearby Terrassa and quickly emerged as the pick of the litter there.

The region’s two biggest clubs, Barcelona and Espanyol, tried to persuade him to join their schoolboy set-up but his parents declined both offers and felt he would be better off maturing at Jabac.

Eventually inducted into the Barca academy at 14 – having sealed the deal with an impressive performance in a friendly against a Danish club side – he excelled as either a false nine or an attacking midfielder at La Masia. He made his debut for Barca B in February 2018 in a second-tier game against Gimnastic of Tarragona and broke into the first team at the end of that year, marking his senior bow with an assist in a Copa del Rey win over Cultural Leonesa.

He helped Barcelona win the UEFA Youth League in 2018 and was given his first La Liga start in April 2019 in a goalless draw with Huesca. He did not play a single minute in the first-half of this season, but after Quique

Setien replaced Ernesto Valverde as coach in January he was back in the frame and was deployed as a substitute in a 1-0 home win over Granada.

The next step

Now 20, he has a big decision to make. With just over a year left on his contract, and the signs being that Setien has gone cold on his initial promise to offer more first-team opportunities to homegrown youngsters, the life-long Barca fan may have to look elsewhere for regular toptier action. If he does have a future at

Camp Nou it could depend on Ivan Rakitic and Arturo Vidal being moved on.

Strengths

His intelligence, awareness, touch and mesmerising trickery between the lines. With his quick feet and low centre of gravity, he is difficult to dispossess.

Weaknesses

He still has a lot to learn about the defensive demands of the modern game and can hold onto the ball a little too long at times.

“He has an inborn talent. He’s overflowing with vision and cheek. He doesn’t know fear” Barcelona B-team coach Xavi Garcia Pimienta