Patxi Salinas is full of praise for Quicala Bari

Portugalete achieved their second consecutive victory last Sunday, after signing a fateful league start that made them even occupy the relegation places. He has already taken his head out of the lower part of the table. In part, thanks to the gall and quality of a name that is beginning to sound very strong from Florida: Quicala Bari. The 20-year-old winger is being one of the great sensations of the pitchers, acquiring a great role in each of his appearances. His quality is not overlooked and Patxi Salinas himself was full of praise for his footballer after concluding the last clash.

Quicala Bari landed at Portugalete after a brief stay at Derio de División de Honor, where in eleven games, he scored six goals and distributed five assists. He has not taken the extreme to prove his worth. His coach already calls him a “differential player” and he considers that he is “to jump two categories right now”. “He has everything, he has a brutal change of pace and a one-on-one that you don’t see in these categories, he has the conditions to be a great footballer”, he highlights. Salinas would not be surprised if teams that play in higher echelons ask about him, so his only wish is that he stay until the end of the season. “I hope they take it away by next year,” he says.

Really, he is a footballer who has perplexed locals and strangers alike with his impudence, overflow and his dribbling skills. The only doubt that he harbors at the moment is about his decision-making capacity in the final meters. Patxi Salinas reveals that “in training he has a fantastic hit, he builds his leg very quickly and with brutal power. We have to continue working with him so that he gets more out of the number of chances he has”. The coach, who last year took over the reins of Bilbao Athletic and promoted several Basconia players, has not taken long to find a resemblance to one of Lezama’s pearls.

According to Patxi Salinas, Quicala Bari is “very similar” to Malcom Adu Ares. “They are two wonders, they have a drive that makes them impossible to stop, they change the rhythm at an amazing speed,” he says. It should be remembered that Adu was very much to the liking of Patxi Salinas, who decided to promote him to the Bilbao second team. Despite his youth and inexperience, he quickly became a fundamental piece of the subsidiary, scoring six goals in half a season that were decisive for them to achieve permanence. So much so that he made the preseason with the first team and has already made his debut in the First Division under Ernesto Valverde.