La Semana

Rafa Márquez makes Barça Athletic an invincible team

- Por CARLOS TICÓ

Barcelona's second team has replicated the state of form of Xavi's team since he announced his farewell and remains undefeated since January

It's been two months since Xavi Hernández announced his departure from Can Barça. It seemed to be an open secret, but what many thought was that he would not be the one to make that decision. It was on January 27 when Barcelona lost to Villarreal, and since then the Trst Barcelona team has not lost any match.

Barça B is also in very good shape. Last Sunday, in the match against Cornellà, the second culé team won 10 with many youth. Rafa Márquez's team has several footballer­s who have concentrat­ed with their teams on this FIFA date. Curious in a Primera RFEF team, but it is still Barcelona, a club that brings out many 'jewels' from La Masia. young

Xavi and Márquez's teams, unstoppabl­e

It's been two months since Barça has lost a single game. After the 'manita' of the groguet team in Montjuic, Xavi announced his departure in the summer, and it seems that that has awakened the competitiv­e and motivation­al spirit of his players. Even the Terrassa coach has said on occasion that his message was necessary and positive for the team to react.

That's how it was, and so far he has achieved important things: qualify for the Champions League quartertna­ls, beat Atlético de Madrid and place second in the Laliga classitcat­ion more than 20 days later. The team led by Rafa Márquez is also at its best. The last victory against Cornellà meant a before and after. The detnitive test to contrm that the Barcelona team can be a clear candidate to be promoted to the Second Division. Well, the culés occupy the second place in group 1 of the First RFEF, one point from the leader, the Depor.

There are seven victories and three draws of the Trst team since Xavi's announceme­nt. For his part, the good dynamics of Márquez's is even better: eight wins and two draws in the last ten commitment­s. This is the best streak of the season.

The 'pearls' summoned with

their selections

Pau Cubarsí, Héctor Fort, Lamine Yamal, Mikayil Faye, Jaume Cuéllar, Marc Guiu, Marc Bernal, Diego Kochen and Noah Darvich are the players who do not have a record of Barça's Trst team and have been called up with their respective teams. Not all with the absolute: Marc Guiu and Héctor Fort were summoned with Spain U21, Marc Bernal with the U17, Diego Kochen with the U19 of the United States and Noah Darvich plays with the U18 of Germany.

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