Whoever hasn’t heard of Ansu Fati by now must be living under a rock.
The young 16-year-old La Masia sensation has really been the star of every Barcelona show whenever he’s featured on the pitch for the Catalan giants.
Of course, it all started with his first call up for a La Liga game back on matchday two and it continued quickly with him bagging both a goal and an assist in a single clash on matchday four, breaking multiple records along the way and writing history for Barcelona and Spanish football as a whole.
He went from a really talented 16-year-old boy, still learning how to walk in La Masia, to a 16-year-old kid bound to become a superstar in the foreseeable future. Things really do work fast in modern football and Fati is definitely feeling it on his own skin right now.
But breaking records solely on La Liga soil seemingly wasn’t enough for him so he decided to bring some of that to Barcelona’s first European trip of the season.
The Catalans travelled to Signal Iduna Park where they faced Borussia Dortmund in the opening game of group F in the Champions League. And not only did Fati travel alongside Lionel Messi and co. but he also started the game from the get-go.
That achievement made him become the youngest ever Barcelona player to feature in the Champions League at the age of just 16 years and 321 days, once again leaving the former record-holder, Bojan Krkic, behind in the dust.
He stayed on the pitch for 59 minutes and was replaced by Messi just short of the hour mark. And despite Barcelona’s goalless draw that definitely left a lot to be desired, the spotlight was firmly on Fati once again as the footballing world seemingly just can’t get enough of the teenage prodigy.
But Valverde will definitely have some decisions to make in the coming weeks. Does he keep Fati in the senior squad and officially promote him despite his young age and inexperience or does he grant him some more time to mature with Barcelona B?
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Barcelona’s coach did talk about Fati before the Borussia Dortmund clash and he insisted that playing him is not with an aim to break records but rather to help the team achieve victory.
And yes, seeing such a young player lighting up the stage is something many football fans love to see but is Fati actually ready to make such a huge step-up and don the Blaugrana kit on the biggest stage of them all?
We have to remember that he completely skipped the process of featuring for Barcelona B and went from the U-19 squad straight into the lion’s den and La Liga. This is a jump not even Messi did back in the day.
Even Barcelona’s best player in the history of the club followed and trusted the process, climbing through the ranks until he was finally ready to challenge the first-teamers. Sure, the skill he had and the quality he showed were immediately visible and his talent alone was proof enough he would indeed turn into a superstar of the future.
But he still had to mature in order to become a regular first-teamer or rather, a squad member within the first-team.
A player who enjoyed similar outcries of the media and lauding of various players and coaches was Krkic, a now 29-year-old Montreal Impact player whose various records Fati broke in the past weeks. But he also didn’t make such big jumps all at once.
Fati, for those reasons, is a very special case at Barcelona but that isn’t necessarily a good thing. Obviously, he’s very talented and skilled. After all, he wouldn’t have scored two goals and assisted one in three La Liga games if he wasn’t.
But the clash against Borussia Dortmund also reminded us of one other thing: Fati is, for all his skills, potential, talent and brilliance, still just 16 years of age, and that shows on the pitch.
Sure, Barcelona need a breath of fresh air and he is definitely that but he is also too immature and too inexperienced to be starting huge Champions League clashes like the on against Borussia Dortmund.
As a result, he only tallied an 80% passing accuracy, as well as four unsuccessful touches and three dispossessions. Slandering a 16-year-old kid for an underwhelming performance in the Champions League doesn’t really seem fair but it’s also the reality of the situation.
It would be wise for Valverde to take a step back and think this through properly. Is this process helping Fati develop at a rate that’s best for him? Is he going to reach his potential if he continues doing what he’s doing now?
If so, then by all means, let the kid break more records and let him feature for Barcelona again.
But if there’s an off chance that this is all happening too fast and might hurt his progress then Valverde has to take it as absolute certainty.
The risk is far too great and maybe it wouldn’t hurt Fati to spend some time with his peers rather than wrestling players twice his age on a stage that still might be just a tiny bit too big for him.
The choice and the decision, however, will fall on Valverde’s shoulders.
Let’s hope he does the right thing, whatever that may be.