At the last minute, and after an unexpected change of heart, Ansu Fati leaves for the Premier. He’s going to Brighton a modern and attractive team led by one of the most daring coaches in world football: the Italian Robert of Zerbi, who has convinced him with several phone calls. It is assignment, assuming the English club almost 80% of his salary. The rest will be paid by the Barça team.
Not even two years ago when Barça handed him the ’10’ that released Messi’s forced departure to Paris SG. Not even a week ago, Xavi, his coach, classified him as “present and future assets of the club.” Gestures and words that have not served to guarantee his future because they have not corresponded, or so the young player (20 years old) believes, with the facts.
He leaves because he feels like the last forward of the squad. Or almost. He goes to Brighton because he sees that he plays almost nothing, eclipsed, moreover, by the appearance of the phenomenon Lamine Yamal. He is now the young man, 16 years old, what Ansu was at the time. In Ansu modern football is synthesized. Enthroned when he was interested in Barça; discarded now when he was interested in Barça. Without the patience that he had, for example, with Dembélé because his departure also opens the door to Joao Cancelo and Joao Felix.
Ansu is leaving, although he did not want to leave at the beginning of this turbulent market in which he ended up, on the penultimate day, with his bags packed on his way to Brighton, a club specialized in training young talent, which he later sells at a megastar price to ‘Big Six’ of the Premier.
In the shelter of De Zerbi
A team, the By Zerbiwho has risen to the elite in England (he will play in the Europa League) with a football rich in tactical nuances, full of daring in his game, where the place that Ansu could occupy is now inhabited by Kaoru Mitoma, a funny 26-year-old Japanese striker. Perhaps it will be the ex-Barcelona’s turn to act as a second striker (Brighton plays with 4-2-3-1) or as a ‘false nine’.
There the “heritage” of Barça ends up ceded. That footballer with whom, hit by injuries (up to four operations on his battered knee), has not had the patience that the institution has exhibited with others.
He has endured with enormous dignity Ansu the emotional weight of wearing that jacket that he projected Messi to perfection. He didn’t want to, but it was great for the club that he agreed to take her.
It is also good for the club that he now leaves for England on an unexpected Erasmus because it was understood that he should be a structural pillar of the project. He believed so too. But the first three days have been enough to verify that his feelings from last season (he understood that Xavi did not count on him and even his father Boris exploded) were now confirmed.
Three League games 23-24, three substitutions
“Ansu deserves to play more”, proclaimed Boris Fati at the end of March. Nothing has changed at this start of the season. Three games, three consecutive substitutions. Substitute was in Getafe (11 minutes he played), substitute in Montjuïc against Cádiz (21) and substitute, of course, in La Cerámica against Villarreal (14).
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Not even Raphinha’s sanction has freed him from sitting on the bench because the coach preferred to have lamina yamal. And she has done great for Xavi. For Ansu, the situation has become entrenched in such a way that he finally gave in to the pressures he received from those closest to him, especially his father and his jorge mendes, his agent, to definitively break his will to stay. And he leaves, opening the scenario that would allow the club to bring Cancelo and Joao Félix, both on loan. All three represented by Mendes.
“This is Barça, this is not an NGO,” Xavi came to proclaim at the beginning of June in an interview he gave to Mundo Deportivo when asked if he could guarantee his continuity. It was when the market had not yet started. It was June when Ansu still wanted to continue in Barcelona. At the end of August, he changed his mind and heads to the south of England in search of the minutes he didn’t get. He actually travels to Ansu in search of the best version of Ansu.