why do we like Barça’s latest pearl so much?

“In June last year he was a player in the cadet A squad and now he has gone with the Spanish national team. He did not go through the youth B team, but made the jump directly to the youth A team. [per jugar-hi la temporada 2020-21] and, last year, he already played some games with me in the subsidiary “, remembers the Barcelona coach about a midfielder who just turned 17 in August. After signing his first contract as a professional in September 2020 and despite being one of the youngest players in youth A, in the middle of the season he already started to be in the dynamics of the branch, and in February, Garcia Pimienta made his debut: “He is a special player who understands the game very well. He knows how to play between the lines, well profiled and offering solutions. Whenever he still receives the opposing goal “.

Among Gavi’s virtues is also versatility, a fact that Koeman especially values. “In the first team he is playing both inside and out, coming in and generating superiority with a lot of judgment. A fact that speaks very well of him because it shows that he understands the game very well,” continues the former coach of the branch. “He also has a lot of character and works both offensively and defensively, and that, for a Barça interior, is key.” Gavi’s desire to be everywhere, however, also clashes with a point of acceleration: but this is also the fruit of age and will eventually polish it. ”

The virtues of Iniesta and Keita

Carles Martínez, current Kuwait under-20 coach and former La Masia coach, agrees with Pimienta’s defense and defense that, in his opinion, the ideal position for the young player from Los Palacios y Villafranca is the left-back. “He can play in several places because he is not a footballer who has a single great virtue, but he has many. In fact, he can play in all three positions in midfield or false end, as Iniesta did, but where it is more decisive is as a left inside: filtering the last pass and also arriving from the second line “, explains the technician, who lived first hand the formative progression of the Andalusian, since he directed it so much to the infantile one as in cadet A after arriving at Barça in 2015 to play to the youngster A coming from Betis.

Iniesta is one of the footballers in whom Gavi is mirrored, but Martínez also puts on the table a name that was never very mediated but that Pep Guardiola fell in love with: “Offensively he can remember Iniesta, but I think he is much more approachable and has It should be added that on the defensive level he is more hardworking and, in a way, reminds me of the Keita we saw at Barça. He is very complete, he also has things from Xavi, but in the end: it must be the Gavi “.

The youth coach explains this analysis while celebrating that the home players can have opportunities in the first team: “It is true that the current context has favored the arrival of young people, but neither Gavi nor his family or his environment they have never asked for anything more than they have deserved over the years. ” An observation shared by Garcia Pimienta: “He is just as humble as a good player. If he had to play with youth B now, he would go there without any problems.”

Well surrounded

The player’s environment and the support he has had at La Masia, in fact, are key factors in explaining the “maturity and naturalness” with which Gavi is devouring stages at just 17 years old. A former planter worker who knows him and his family well values ​​that “he is very well advised”. Gavi is represented by Iván de la Peña and Barça has already begun the first talks with the footballer and his entourage to expand the link between the two parties and improve the conditions of a contract ending in 2023. “His entourage On the other hand, Ilaix, who was also a dwarf who had to play in the first team, had representatives who thought more about the transfer “, resolves the same source, who defines him as a player” called to stay in the first team “.

The impulsive character that Gavi sometimes teaches on the pitch is also seen in his way of being. “At La Masia there are guidelines and habits that must be respected and, like any young boy, he has had his distractions. When he had to be warned because, for example, he did not eat what he touched or not he wanted to study, the way to do it was by alerting his coach telling him that he could not be called up or that he should play fewer minutes.This is what bothers them the most, but he accepted it and strived to improve. an attentive, listening and humble boy, “recalls the source, who distances the player from any form of pretension or ostentation. “You see other dwarfs who when they start to stand out dress in a more extravagant way or who change their attitude. He, on the other hand, walked around La Masia in shorts and flip-flops and continues to treat his friends in the same way for a long time. that he already plays for Barça’s first team “.