With Marc Guiu, another teenager at FC Barcelona has stormed into the headlines. A great career seems possible – but there are also warning negative examples.
Marc Guiu experienced how quickly dreams can come true on Sunday evening (October 22, 2023). The 17-year-old not only made his professional debut with FC Barcelona, but also needed just 33 seconds to score his first goal and give his club a 1-0 win against Athletic Bilbao. It’s actually a spectacular story – but at Barca, teenagers who suddenly skyrocket are a recurring pattern.
The current squad includes midfielders Gavi and Pedri, the two prototypes of the current generation; they have been voted among the world’s best talents in the last two years – Pedri won the “Golden Boy Award” in 2021, Gavi in 2022. And since this season there has been a additional candidates for this award have been added. Lamine Yamal recently became the youngest goalscorer in Spanish La Liga history at the age of 16, having previously achieved this with the Spanish national team.
Many talents took off – but many didn’t
Yamal and now Guiu are players who are predicted to have a great future in professional football. This is no coincidence, as Barcelona traditionally gives young players from its talent factory “La Masia” many opportunities to develop. Lionel Messi is certainly the model player of Barca’s youth, the list of players who had world careers would be impressive even without him: Xavi, Sergio Busquets, Andres Iniesta, Thiago Alcantara, Carles Puyol and many more.
But in some cases the blessing also becomes a burden. There were also super talents who spent their entire careers chasing expectations that were often too high. Great talent is not always a guarantee of success.
Krkic suffered from Messi comparison
Bojan Krkic knows what it means to be called a prodigy and then not experience the steep rise. As a teenager, he shone alongside Messi at Barca’s professional team – but when he left the club at the age of 20, the super talent turned into a promise that could not be kept. After nine further positions, including at Mainz 05 and most recently in Japan at Vissel Kobe, Krkic ended his career in March 2023.
Bojan Krkic (l.) and Lionel Messi celebrate together in the FC Barcelona jersey.
The striker looks back quite satisfied – but the expectations were much higher. “Things went well football-wise, but not personally. I had to live with people complaining that my career wasn’t going as expected“, Krkic told the Guardian in 2018. Especially when “new Messi“Being labeled was a great burden.”If you compare me to Messi, what kind of career do you expect?“
Dos Santos also wanted to party
Great talent alongside perhaps the best footballer of all time – Giovani dos Santos is another “victim” of the great post-Messi hopes. When the Mexican scored a hat-trick in the league on May 17, 2008, just a week after his 19th birthday, it was supposed to be the triple start of a great career – but things turned out differently.
Giovani dos Santos in the Mexican national team jersey.
The now 34-year-old played for eight different clubs after Barca, none of them at the highest level, and was even without a club for two years in the final phase of his career. Dos Santos, who played 109 international matches for Mexico, apparently lacked the drive to make the most of his enormous talent. “If Giovani could avoid a nightclub like he can pass a ball, everything would be fine“said Harry Redknapp, his coach at the time Tottenham Hotspur, in 2010 to the Daily Star.
Fati was given the number 10, but no regular place
There are other examples like this, but Ansu Fati doesn’t want to be one of them. At 20, the Spaniard is still at the beginning of his career, but the promising start with the Catalans also led to excessive expectations for him – and not just from outside.
“If it were up to me I would take him away from Barca, but he wants to stay“, the sports newspaper “Mundo Deportivo” quoted his father Bori Fati, who advises him with star agent Jorge Mendes. The reason for the statement: Teenager Fati had not been able to fight for a regular place. “I’m angry as a father. We’re talking about Barca’s number 10, a Spanish international and a boy from La Masia. I think we deserve a lot more“, says Bori Fati.
The billion dollar clause sends the wrong signal?
How does the player’s father come to this conclusion? In addition to the great club support for talent, there is also an already controversial measure that gives the young players great hopes. In Spain, the professionals have to be given the opportunity to change clubs through release clauses and Barca sets this absurdly high for their talents. In doing so, the club not only scares off interested parties, but also signals a certain (false) value to the young players. Fati is one of several players who have a €1 billion release clause.
Ansu Fati dribbles against two Olympique Marseille players.
At the end of the summer transfer window, the offensive player was hired Brighton & Hove Albion awarded. In the Premier League But things aren’t going well yet, Fati was only used as a joker five times. Most recently in the top games against Liverpool FC (2:2) and at Manchester City (1:2), the former Barca prodigy was only allowed to play for one or 24 minutes. Being labeled as such is sometimes a blessing and a curse at the same time.