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Like the return from exile. That of a generation that promised a future, that was left without a present at Barça and that is already part of a nostalgic culé past. A group of young footballers who wreaked havoc on the fields of Catalonia and who aimed to take the first team to the top, but who were left without a place. The generation of ’95 had to go out and find a life outside of La Masia. An unwanted expatriation, an early birth. Among that group, Sandro Ramírez and Munir El Haddad, now players for UD Las Palmas under the orders of a former culé, Francisco Javier García Pimienta. This Saturday they will face Barcelona, the father who had to give up on them, in Montjuïc after the national team break (9:00 p.m., Movistar+).
In the first leg, it was precisely Munir who opened the scoring – and the only Canarian goal – with the assist from Sandro after 12 minutes of play. Both, considered the new jewels of the Camp Nou in the past, were forced to move between various Spanish teams between loans and signings due to the small gap in the forward line formed by Messi, Neymar or Luis Suárez. They were the last stronghold of a golden generation, the one that won the Nike Cup in Manchester in 2010, and four years later they raised Barcelona’s first UEFA Youth League, where Munir was the top scorer, the MVP and scored a double in the final . Héctor Bellerín, Jon Toral, Keita Balde, Álex Grimaldo, Jean Marie Dongou and Sergi Samper are some of the footballers from those years who had to leave Barcelona.
“Barça can rest assured, this group of players, if it continues its normal progression, in a few years can be the basis of the first team,” analyzed Eusebio Sacristán when he was still managing Barça B. But that prophecy was not fulfilled. Munir, a scorer in the youth categories, made his debut in the first team in 2014, and until 2019 – when he left for Sevilla after two loans – he made 56 appearances and 12 goals. After four seasons at the Sevillian club and after 113 games played, he spent a year at Getafe until finally landing, this year, in Las Palmas. Where he reunited with an old colleague: Sandro. The Canarian player also debuted in 2014 under the wings of Luis Enrique, and accumulated 32 games and seven goals with the first team before leaving for Málaga in 2016, then to Everton – with three loans -, passing through Huesca, another loan to Getafe and one more to Las Palmas in 2022 until its purchase in 2023.
García Pimienta will fight for victory from the bench – and not Xavi, who has been reprimanded -, one of the highest-rated youth team coaches but fired in 2021 with one year left on his contract. In addition, there are three other players in Las Palmas with a Barça past: Marc Cardona, who only played two games with the first team; Mika Mármol, a key footballer for Pimi and of whom Barcelona still retains 50% of the federative rights; and Julián Araujo, on loan from the Barça club until the end of the season, injured and restricted by the fear clause.
Las Palmas will try to face Barcelona with the same recipe. “Pimienta has Barça DNA. We have to be protagonists with the ball. It will not be an easy match,” Xavi confessed in the preview. The culé team arrives on a good streak after eight league games without losing, while its rival has accumulated five games without winning. And to make matters worse, Las Palmas has not returned from Barcelona with a victory for more than 52 years. The return for many could taste like revenge, but above all of nostalgia when the culé anthem plays on the magical mountain of Montjuïc.
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2024-03-30 04:15:00
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