 Over the past few months I've made 13 mini-documentaries about FC Barcelona players, and today I've cut out the best stories from each one to create maybe the greatest resource online to learn about the lives of some current FC Barcelona players. However, the first two are stories that you've never heard before. Vito Roque is on his way to Barcelona. He's the man, he's a player for the next 10-15 years, he's a Guero 2.0. Born in Timoteo, Brazil, Roque potentially started off his footballing career as a central midfielder before moving up the pitch when he moved to Atletico Mignero at 10 years old. And he's pretty much excelled at every level of football he's played since, earning a move to Cruzero at 14. But as he matured, it could not have been easy for him to focus on football because Cruzero was dealing with a lot of financial struggles shrouded in fraud and embezzlement, and Atletico Paranesa took advantage of a bit of privileged information, allegedly allowing them to sign Roque for less than his release clause. Hey, at least it's good to know that the kid can succeed at a club in financial trouble, because succeed he did. Initially, Atletico planned to only introduce him into the first team slowly as he was still 16-17 years old. But because of a few key injuries in their forward line, they were forced to throw him to the wolves in the Copa Libertadores, and after just five minutes in his first match for Atletico, he delivered, and delivered, and delivered again. Helping to lead that team to the final of the Copa Libertadores that season. Since then, he has been incredibly prolific for a side that isn't the best, even if it is run very well. He showed that he could perform with very little service, and was able to create chances and create opportunities to score goals out of nothing with very little support going forward. Not to mention his very impressive pressing ability that will be very beneficial to Barcelona in the future. But more importantly, he has shown other traits that are going to be critical to his success at Barcelona. He can handle a club in turmoil. That's not something you could say for a lot of young players, but that is something necessary to be successful at Barcelona right now. Also, as he showed in the first few games for Atletico, he is capable of playing and performing well when he is not necessarily prepared to do so. The club wasn't exactly prepared to throw him to the wolves in the Copa Libertadores, one of the toughest tournaments in the world, and yet he showed up and he performed very well. And that may be very beneficial for him at Barcelona, chances are Chavi isn't exactly prepared to start him right now, but with all of the injuries they've been having, and with how poorly Lewandowski has been playing, I wouldn't be surprised if the team starts really struggling and they just need some spark, and so Roque gets more time than he was necessarily told he was going to get at the beginning. However, we need to temper our expectations and just be happy that he is here and being groomed to be Barcelona's next best striker. Whether he starts a few games or is solely a substitute or doesn't even play at all, it doesn't matter. I don't care what he does this season, and honestly I'd rather him not be that important. We need to give him time to grow, and I'm telling myself that too because I'm getting excited and I don't want to get too excited yet. Anzufati was once praised as the next coming of Messi, the guy who would save Barcelona, and for a little while he was incredible to watch. But when the team needed him most he vanished, or well he was injured, but to understand the significance of that we have to go back to his beginning. Anzufati was born in Guinea-Bissau in 2002 and has always had football in his blood. His father was an ex-professional player and actually brought Anzufati with him to Sevilla Spain in 2009 for work, while his older brother and cousin are both footballers today as well. So it seemed destined for Anzufati to follow in their footsteps, but little did the Fati family know just how bright their little boy would shine. In 2011 Anzufati's brother made a jump to La Masia first, and just a year later Anzufati followed. At La Masia Anzufati had access to anything and everything that a young player could need, and he thrived. Anzufati was referred to as a merchant of chaos by youth coach Victor Valdes, and he made quick work of each level at the Catalonian club. Coming into the 2019-2020 season, 16 year old Anzufati was prepared to make his step up into the Barcelona B team, and begin getting more experience playing against adult professionals in the Spanish third tier. But as we all know, things wouldn't exactly go to plan. Early in that season Ernesto Valverde's men were crippled with injuries. Ever injured Osman de Dembele, Luis Suárez, and by October, Lionel Messi had all gone out to injury. And well, Antoine Griezmann could only do so much, so Valverde called upon a 16 year old Anzufati to save the team. And man did he show up. In his first match, even though he played less than 30 minutes for the club, he proved to be exactly what Victor Valdes had described him as, a merchant of chaos, of anarchy. He drove at defenders, playing clean one-twos, and making things happen. Just narrowly missing his first goal in Blaugrana. Just six days later, he would become Barcelona's youngest goal scorer ever, a title now owned by La Minha Ma. And for the entirety of that year, he was special. Very special. He played with a recklessness, a desire to create and score that so many Barcelona players today lack. With that though, came a lot of expectations and pressure. But for the most part, Anzufati held it pretty well. In his first season, Anzufati scored eight goals across all competitions on an extra of less than five. At 16 years old, he was more clinical than anyone else in that team. And despite being forced out for two games that season for three separate small injuries, he came back screaming each time. Sure, his talent was raw, but he played with an ambition and aggression that few players on that team had. But sadly, that playstyle wouldn't last very long. Going into his second season with Barcelona on November 8th, 2020, Anzufati tore his meniscus in his knee. This injury sent him into a spiral that would completely change him as a player. In total, being injured that one time cost him to be out for 304 days, missing 64 games for club and country. But when he came back, he was still a similar player to the player he had been before. He had the same ambition and aggression, and he played pretty well, but only for a game or two. He would go out again injured only a few games later. And he would consistently be on and off the pitch until May 2022, when he would finally get a consistent run of games in. However, the answer that we saw on the pitch then was nowhere near the player we had seen a year and a half earlier. Most of what made him so impactful, so important for the team had seemingly disappeared, rotting away with him on his hospital bed. He still had solid movement off of the ball and could strike a ball well once in a while, but he was nowhere near being clinical anymore. He would often take too much time, waiting for the perfect chance, the perfect moment to strike a ball, a perfect moment that would never come. He was so disappointing in fact that at the beginning of the season, Chavi felt confident that they did not need him, and sent him off to Brighton. There, he could hopefully get to restart somewhere new, away from the toxic Catalan media and the whistles of the Camp No. He didn't get the quickest start, in fact, he didn't even start for the first few matches for them, but eventually he found his footing, and you began to see glimpses of the special player that he once was. He scored a few goals and linked up well with his new teammates, but after just three months with Brighton, he got injured again. He is now set to miss 17 matches for the English club and I'm just praying that it doesn't end up to be more games than that. I desperately want Anzu to succeed as a player, but I think he needs a lot of time to build up his confidence again. Hopefully he can do that when he comes back in February, but I'm just unsure about his future because of these injuries. However, despite his injury, I'm much less unsure about the future of Gavi. Pablo Gavira was born in 2004 in a small farming town just a little while south of Sevilla, but even at a young age, it seemed like he only ever had one thing on his mind, football. His parents never seemed to care much for football, but they gave Gavi the freedom to explore his dreams himself. When Gavi joined his boyhood club La Liara at the age of six in 2010, the coaches there recognized his lively and exciting playstyle immediately. During his time there, he always played above his age group and competed in any match he was in, despite the competition. His coach recognized that this young man, that Gavi had an ability to drive with the ball and a fighting spirit that he had never seen before in a six-year-old. His former coach said that before games, he was so quiet he didn't seem to exist, and then he got on the pitch and became the leader for his team. This diminutive player embodied something that not a lot of players did. He had something special that made him different than every other player on the field, something that gave him the confidence to hold off defenders twice his size and always be the first in the team to defend and the first to attack. His old teammates remember that Gavi always ran more than every other player on the field and that he had technical skills that kids four or five years older than him didn't have. So even at a young age, it was clear that Gavi had the hunger for action, the fight in him, and he would find even more of that when he moved to Real Batisse just three years later. Here, this promising player really began to take shape. There also happened to be a tournament in which he made it to the final with his team and he happened to score a hat-trick against none other than Barcelona. And just about a year after that match, Gavi would leave Batisse for the Catalan club. But like he always has, he stood out immediately. At just 11 years old, Gavi's expertise and speed of execution seemed like that of a much older and generally a much bigger player. There was just some impossible force that seemed to thrust Gavi up and down the pitch and keep him on his feet, no matter what happened. In Gavi's first appearance for Barcelona in the under-11s, he happened to score a goal against none other than city rivals Espanyol. And in doing so, he received a blow to the face that would force him off the pitch and would leave him with a broken nose and a chipped tooth. For a lot of young players, an injury like that could change the way you play, forcing them to withdraw from tackles because of potential danger to their bodies and putting the team at risk because of it. In essence, causing the player to put their well-being before the team. In Gavi's next game back, he helped secure the win for the team. By, and I quote, in the last action of the game there was a cross and Gavi went to meet it with his head like an animal and he scored a goal. He acted without fear, he didn't care, he saw the ball and went like a lion. Any other player would have thought twice. Gavi has never put anything before the team and before winning. That fearless fighter seems all too familiar to anyone who has watched a Barcelona game in the past two years. But it would take a wavering team and a new manager on the brink to give Gavi a chance with the first team. This season, Barcelona were in quite a dire situation. Messi left, Aguero came and left and it was just a lackluster season of signings in general. But there was a light at the end of the tunnel, the team's youth. Araujo and Pedri had shown the year before and Cule's were excited to see them mature under Kuman. However, there was a little La Masia graduate that would end up grabbing more starts and appearances in La Liga than both of them. And his name was Gavi. Kuman already had a thin midfield at the start of the season with Busquets, Pedri and Frankie being the only solid first team players. So there would be a lot of chance for game time for young players and it didn't take too long for Gavi to snatch up those minutes away from the likes of Nico Gonzalez and famed favorite Ricky Pooch. Easily becoming the fourth favorite midfielder and even becoming the third favorite midfielder when Pedri was inevitably injured. That same swagger and intensity that had impressed everyone at La Liada when he was six years old impressed everyone again. Despite all of the problems and drama from that season, Gavi was one of the few bright lights that came out of it and everyone was very excited to see what this brilliant player would bring in the 22-23 season. At the start of the 22-23 season, it seemed just as exciting as everyone had wanted it to be. Gavi won the Copa Trophy in October and Barca was doing solidly in the league but then everything seemed to go wrong for them. People were getting hurt, they dropped out of the Champions League and it was disaster for Chavi's Chavi implemented some changes which led to their four midfielder system. In this system, Gavi would play as a false linger on the left and because of his intensity and confidence on the ball, Chavi believed Gavi would be a very good tool for that spot and for the season, most would consider him to have done his job there. The only problem was that that job kept him from shining in the same way that he had this season before so he wasn't able to excel the way he had at every level of football he ever played in. Sure at the end of the season, Gavi had played in 36 of Barcelona's 38 league games. Incredible, but the feeling, the excitement for Gavi wasn't really there anymore. The Gavi who Scets now believe, the Jows come in, Romeo arrives. This year, Barcelona had a much more well-rounded team than they had the season prior. So clearly, Chavi felt more comfortable playing a more traditional 4-3-3 system. It probably also helped that they finally had someone who naturally played on the left, but now he dropped the 4th midfielder and was back to the 3-man midfield. And the moment he did this, the second we saw the 3-man midfield come back, the old Gavi that got everyone so excited was back. Everything moves so smoothly. Romeo and Frankie are locking it down as Gundavan is creating just as well as he ever did at City and Gavi is running rampant all over the pitch, diving into tackles, making goal line clearances, doing whatever he can to save the team. Gavi was back, Gavi is back and just get excited and pay attention to that little man on the screen because what we are going to see from him this season is going to be better than what we ever had. And with Frankie and Pedri's injury, we're only going to be even seeing more of him now. Yikes, this one really hurts. I desperately wanted Gavi to have an incredible season and I know he would have, I still would put Gavi as my MVP for the end of this year. But he is going to be out for the rest of the season now. But think positively because what I said was going to happen that he was going to be incredibly important for the squad and that he was hopefully going to look good did happen. He was incredibly good and incredibly important for the squad for two months up until that injury. The good thing is though that an ACL injury, despite the fact that he's going to be out for this entire year, isn't exactly an injury that is going to linger. This means that even though he was initially out for more time than say Pedri was with his first hamstring injury, it shouldn't be showing up over and over again throughout the rest of his career. And this is incredibly important because with Pedri, they're actually having to change the way he trains. They're not letting him shoot from outside the box apparently with his right foot because it rangered him last time. But even though Gavi and Pedri are out right now, those outside of the box shots are more than made up for by another La Masia product, Fermin Lopez, one of the most promising players in the Barcelona squad right now, if he can get playing time. Fermin Lopez was born in Andalucia and played for several different academy teams growing up, including Batiste, where in 2014 he would actually meet Gavi, though the players didn't play in the same age group as Fermin was actually older, but he eventually found his way to Barcelona in 2016. However, just like a lot of people, when he moved to La Masia, he really struggled. He was smaller than most of the other players and he wouldn't see a growth spurt until well after a lot of them had. However, it was precisely this difference that forced Fermin to learn how to play football a little bit differently than everyone else. He needed to have a certain fight or ferociousness that bigger players just did not need to have, something we see a lot in Gavi today. His struggles made him stronger, and that's very important to him because he continued to struggle as he got older. He didn't jump into the first team at 16 like Gavi and Pedrus. There was so little talk about him in fact that there was another third division team that Barça Athletic decided to send him to because he just was not going to get minutes at Barça Athletic. That year, away from the New Camp, away from La Masia, he was able to become a different player than he might have become at Barça Athletic. There, he learned how to play fighting football, not in the Barcelona way, but in the way of any team that is fighting relegation and promotion and needs special midfielders to step up to make important tackles and also to bring a bit of brilliance in front of goal. And Fermin Lopez was there to step up for them. And even though it was the third division, Fermin would play in 37 matches that season and score 12 goals for them in the league, which is even in that division pretty impressive for a midfielder. However, since it was a third division team that he played for, there was basically no excitement around his name. He went back to Barça and there was really no change. People didn't have that high expectations for him. Nobody was talking about him on Twitter and hell, I didn't even know his name. But the training staff gave him one week in training to see if he could prove himself and make that summer squad or if he would be sent back to Barça Athletic for the entire summer. And I'm not sure entirely what happened, but in that week, Chavi saw that that fight was in him. And not only did he earn a place in the squad for the summer, but he also earned himself minutes in El Clásico, where in his first 20 minutes on the pitch as a Barcelona player, he scored a screamer from outside the box to secure victory and put his name on the score sheet for Barcelona for the very first time. However, all of that magic seemed to be very little use as going into the season, it didn't seem like there was going to be much of a spot for Fermin Lopez with a midfield full of Gavi, Pedri, Frankie and Gundavan on top of Oriol Romeo. Where is some 21 year old kid that hasn't proven himself going to fit in, but it didn't take long for Barcelona players to do what Barcelona players do and all of them seem to get injured. And as upsetting and concerning to every cule in the world, that happens to open up a spot for none other than Fermin Lopez. And now my boy had time to shine. So far in nine matches, four of which are starts, he has three goal contributions and honestly could have a several more if you were just slightly more lucky, because he is constantly getting himself into very dangerous positions, as well as contributing very importantly on the defensive side of the ball. He makes decisions to take a shot at goal in situations where other Barcelona players would absolutely choose to pass it back and maintain possession. If Fermin Lopez can stay healthy, I think he has a great place to be that fourth midfielder, that fifth midfielder, that guy right on the edge to come in in games where you need a spark and to slot into the team when inevitably players get injured. No matter how good Fermin Lopez is right now, my concerns as they were two months ago still remain to this day. I'm worried he won't get the opportunities to prove himself. He's just too far down the pecking order for Chavi. And even though Pedri is out again, I don't think Fermin is going to be getting that much playing time because it seems like La Porta wants to sign another midfielder. But no matter what happens, I really hope Fermin gets more minutes in the coming season because he can be a very special player. On top of that, he brings a little bit of that hunger that we're now missing without Gavi in the squad. But honestly, he'll never be able to eclipse Pedri because he is just special, even though there was one season that basically poisoned his entire career. Initially coming for only 5 million euros in July of 2020, there weren't a ton of expectations around his name. A few smart outlets recognized his potential and noted that he had starting first team potential eventually, but few over the summer expected what would come that season. After only a very short time at Barcelona, he immensely impressed the training staff with his skills. And that knack for immediate impact was something Pedri had carried with him for much of his young career. Unlike a lot of players, Pedri does not have a long history in high-level academy teams, only joining Las Palmas' academy in 2018. While there, after only just one year, he was thrust into the first team in 2019-2020, where he would place 2nd Division Football at just 16 years old, playing against grown professionals in a total of 37 matches for Las Palmas, as well as 7 more matches on top of those in the Spanish youth team system. When a young player makes that much of an impact in the world of football, it doesn't go unnoticed, and he soon earned his move to FC Barcelona the summer after that season. But little did this young man from the Canary Islands know that this year, he would play in the 3rd most games of any top-flight footballer for at least the past two decades. Because, just as Pedri had it with Las Palmas' academy, he improved himself immediately, and he made himself invaluable to Ronald Kuhman. They must have noticed his slick turns in training, as well as the tribal trait titular to the success of any midfielder in Barça's squad, La Pausa. It made Pedri seem years wiser and decades more competent on the ball than anyone else on the pitch. Kules would put that little man up against anyone, but despite the potential repercussions, that's exactly what Kuhman did, at the time, with a confusingly choreographed mess of players that he called a squad, Kuhman did not have a lot of players to rely upon. So, he needed to lean on somebody, and that happens to be Pedri. In the first half of the season, Pedri appeared in every single one of Barcelona's matches, with the exception of one match against Ferran Cevaros. However, even though that is an insane amount of matches to play for a 17-year-old in top-flight football, he only played the full 90 in two matches that season. January 2021 is where this longest season ever for a teenager, and perhaps the most detrimental for any player of all time, really began to take shape. From January to the end of March, Pedri played a significant amount more minutes than he had the years prior. And after only going the full 90 once in the first half of the season, he went the full 93 times in January alone. However, little did we know that that incredible load for a young player would just be the start of it all. This was his first chance to be called up to the World Cup qualifying squad for Spain, and so of course Pedri's going to be excited for it. Pedri played in all three of their matches in March, tallying 185 minutes and providing one assist. Considering Pedri's age and Spain's incredible depth of talent in the midfield, you can already see glimpses of what was to come from Spain's footballing federation in the coming months. After the international break came Barcelona's round of 16 match, and since they placed second behind Juve in their group, they were paired up against one of the strongest sides in Europe at the time, Paris Saint-Germain. But surprisingly, Barcelona's young maestro still shine despite Barcelona's less-than-stellar results. Once a player who had his minutes carefully managed by Koumin, Pedri was now thrust into as much football as possible. And so the kid played as many minutes as they could squeeze out of his heart, and for the most part, he thrived. Pundits lauded his potential, all of his miracle moves, but in reality, what the Pundits and announcers say doesn't really matter. The team's results do, and Barcelona's results were as disappointing as they could have possibly gotten. They dropped both matches to Real Madrid that year, lost the Supercopa in extra time to Athletic Club and slowly dropped enough points to let Atletico Madrid slide to the top of La Liga. Pedri played in 30 matches for Barcelona after January 1st, 2021, picking up five assists and scoring two goals in a struggling side over just five months. However, to his detriment, his performances would not go unnoticed by Spain. You would think that at 18 years old, any player or person for that matter in the world would be thrilled to star for their national team in the Euros. And honestly, Pedri probably was, but in retrospect, he shouldn't have been. In the Euros, Spain had a decent tournament, making it to the semis where they would go out to Italy on pens. However, Pedri played every single minute of the tournament, with the exception of a single minute in their win against Switzerland on pens in the quarter-finals. So it's safe to say, Pedri was probably pretty tired. He had played in 42 matches in just seven months. However, this would not be the end. It would only get worse. After just four days of rest after Spain were knocked out of the Euros on June 6th, Pedri was sent on his way to Spain's Olympic camp in Tokyo, and of course, Spain made a run all the way to the finals of that competition. And as you could have guessed it, Pedri played in every single one of those matches. Sadly, they would lose 2-1 to Brazil in extra time in the finals. A year full of expectations turned to a year of a wonderful player being abused by two desperate footballing groups. But all of that abuse would soon rear its ugly head. Because, after being dismissed from the Olympic team on August 7th, he had about a week of rest before rejoining Barcelona in training camp for the following season. And two weeks into that season, he would suffer a hamstring injury that would see him miss 39 matches in the 21-22 season. Most of the issues experienced by Pedri since then have been directly related to the abuse that he experienced under the reigns of FC Barcelona and the Spanish national team at that time. My New Year's wish is to have a healthy Pedri. I don't care what you have to do, give him a vibranium hamstring, do whatever you need, or honestly just send him the injury luck of Ferran Torres. Because, no matter what, he is always there consistently healthy and consistently ready to play, even if Chavi seems to act like he doesn't exist sometimes. Ferran Torres' career has been absolutely successful. But it also feels a little bit like a disappointment. And this fed-on roller coaster started the second he became a foot sole icon in his school on the outskirts of Valencia. He would eventually join their academy at six years old. While he was at Valencia, the managers and training staff always knew that there was something special about this fast-footed winger. He rapidly rose through the ranks at Valencia. And in 2016, not only did he make his debut for the Spanish under 17s, but he also made his debut for the Valencia B team. However, not all of this excitement or belief in Ferran was felt by everyone around him, because according to a few of his teammates from the time, they weren't that impressed by his impact on the pitch. Yet, he was promoted to the first team within a year. With Valencia's first team, Ferran Torres was decent. And he did impress people at times, but it wasn't a mythically impactful experience. 13 goal contributions in 71 appearances in La Liga is nothing to brag about, but I guess it was enough for Pep Guardiola to see him being worth up to 35 million euros in 2020. That's very steep for 13 goal contributions, but maybe Pep Guardiola saw something, the same thing that all his managers and the staff had seen from him at Valencia that his teammates and fans just couldn't see. And the story about his move to Barcelona is very much the same. Ferran had 12 goal contributions in 28 games and sure, that's better than what he did at Valencia, but again, is it worth 65 million euros? I don't really think so. But yet again, someone maybe Chavi, maybe Joan Laporta, someone saw something in him that fans and teammates didn't necessarily see because he wasn't creating this beautiful end product that was expected of him. And since he arrived in Barcelona, not much has changed. Sure, his first goal for the team was beautiful, but he ended that first year with only four goals in 18 league appearances on top of an XG of seven. So clearly something was going on. Something was holding him back that may have been a major indicator of why maybe people never really saw Fedon Torres' potential except the people that know ball the best like Pep and Chavi. When he played for Valencia, he was so young and the team was a mid table team. So there weren't a ton of expectations on his shoulders. At Man City, it was a very similar picture. He went there during 2020, so his stay was very interrupted by COVID-19. And he was also surrounded by some of the best creators in the world, as well as the best coach in the world. On top of that, he didn't exactly come with that high of a price tag that's going to create incredibly high expectations. So it's probably not like the fans or the club cared that much about how much he was contributing. But everything changed the second he went to Barcelona, joining the team in the middle of a season where they were struggling to even finish top four. And the financial ruin of the Bartomeu era was beginning to show. Every single fan had very high expectations for him and for very good reason. He came for upwards of 65 million euros from Manchester City at only 21 years old. That just smells like incredibly talented player, very exciting player. If I had Barcelona, Fran would not have the breathing room that he probably needed because everyone expected him to get up and start running immediately. Which of course didn't happen, or at least it didn't really happen. I don't think it helped that his first goal for Barcelona was an incredibly clutch masterpiece. So all the Culeys were ready to laud him as the guy. And well, Ferran Torres was not at all ready to be the guy. Being as down on your luck as Ferran was, getting pushed out of your dream club could have and probably should have ruined him. He wasn't just the forward who was missing the most important chances, but now he was also unwanted. And I don't think anyone would have blamed him for wanting to leave. And honestly, it would have made a lot of people happy too. But he stayed, and when the season resumed after a curious transfer market, Ferran came out of it looking very good. Bars had signed a few players, but they also lost a few, keeping Ferran's spot as the second or third choice in all of his positions pretty much the same. But, Ferran took advantage of the few chances he got this time. That's so rare to say, very often, something Barcelona wasn't really able to say since Anzu first appeared on the scene a few years ago. He impressed a lot of people, and he also shut up a lot of haters. A lot of players say that they want to prove themselves at a team and refuse getting pushed out, but it is always hard for fans to tell if that's actually the truth or if it has something more to do with their major salary that they're on. For Ferran, it really looks like he was being honest. He's calling himself a shark now, and that's something that he was probably recommended to do by his therapist. That's a behavior that looks incredibly similar to Zlatan did when he called himself a lion. And as cheesy as it is to make up your own nickname, having the confidence in yourself or even just faking it to create your own nickname can have a very, very beneficial result. Ferran's entire career has been such a confusing roller coaster of incredible expectations, but disappointing impacts in the actual games. Over and over again at pretty much every team he shows up in. And a lot of that has to do with his confidence issue, but if he can fix that, like he is very clearly trying to do right now, the shark has a lot of potential. We need to see so much more of Ferran Torres right now. Ferran Torres deserves more playing time. On top of that, so does Mark Yu. In fact, they are the only two players on top of Joao Cancelo who are outperforming their XG this season. No one else in this team can finish. And don't even get me started on Joao Felix. Actually, let's learn a little bit about him before I rant and go off on him. And this all started when Joao threw Atleti under the bus and professed his love for Barcelona on live TV. But after Joao did it, it didn't exactly spark interest on Barcelona's part. It seemed still to be just a rumor, and Joao was seemingly going to be stuck at Atleti again. But to be fair, the player's frustration does make sense. In 96 games in La Liga, he scored 25 goals and assisted 14 more. That's a fine tally, but nothing special, not 126 million specials. And he didn't really look at home at Madrid, and this all makes sense, because just a few years after signing at Atleti, a very exciting signing, he was shipped off to Chelsea. And I'm sure while there, he hoped that he could contribute something more to Chelsea than he could at Atleti. But that didn't really happen either. Joao would score four goals and not provide a single assist in 16 games in the Premier League. It's safe to say it was pretty disappointing. Now, was that Chelsea's fault or was that Joao's fault? I don't know. I think there were a lot of times in those matches where you could have said that Joao was the most talented player on the field for either team. It just never materialized to anything more than that. This has led to an incredibly messy career for Joao, so it makes a lot of sense that a lot of people were really confused when Barça were linked with him. We've had too many messy transfers over the past few years to have another one. It doesn't make sense to introduce another problematic player to this mess. We know for a fact that he's not a wide-touchline player like Dembele, so he's not going to replace him. And we already have two pseudo-second strikers in Anzu and Ferran, so it doesn't really make a lot of sense to sign a third-second striker. This all materialized in Javi expressing that he wasn't interested in Joao. In the beginning of the transfer rumors, Javi said he wasn't interested in him. He didn't want to sign him because there were some questions with Joao's off-the-ball contributions to the team. A lot of people were worried that he just wasn't going to work in Javi's system. But even if they could somehow slide him into the team, how in the world was the club going to afford it? The club was in no position to ever buy him, so it didn't make sense for that. And sure, they could loan him for a year, but then would they want to buy him? Because again, it doesn't seem like he can fit into the team. But honestly, the board of Barcelona thought differently. La Porta wanted to sign him, probably, to sell some jerseys. But is Joao Felix still that guy? Do people really care about him that much, especially on loan? Well, in the prime of that confusion in the dying moments of Deadline Day, La Porta's board signed Joao Felix on loan. Okay, so we signed Joao Felix. How did people rationalize that? Well, it turns out that a lot of people, even from the start of the rumors with Joao Felix, had a lot of confidence in him for the team. Despite the severe amount of concerns about Joao Felix at Barcelona on Twitter earlier, it seemed like the most in-depth tactical analysis showed Joao as a pretty good fit for this Barcelona system. And though a lot of people were upset that onto left, Joao seemed like a much better fit to a lot of people for that left-wing, second striker position than An Tzu did. In short, maybe La Porta can get his guy that will sell shirts. Once he starts performing well, people will want to buy his shirt, even if he's still on loan. And maybe before the interest in Joao, An Tzu had already wanted to leave because Javi didn't have a lot of confidence in him in his team. So maybe they were just looking for a replacement for An Tzu, which, okay, somewhat makes sense. So how did it actually pan out? Well, safe to say, we were absolutely all impressed. Barcelona with Joao Felix and Joao Consetto look better than they have in years. In just over 140 minutes in La Liga and the Champions League, Joao has three goals and one assist. This play by him is unparalleled in any of the teams he had played for before. He hasn't shown this, this version of himself before since he had been at Benfica. Not only am I hyping him up though, pundits are freaking out, Twitter is freaking out that Barcelona has got their boy, that Joao Felix is here. Joao is happy, he's having fun, and so is the rest of the team. Lewandowski is having a ball now that he has someone there to take the pressure off him, take the focus off him because he's always got two center backs beating the crap out of him, but now Joao is there to take some of that pressure off of him and to play off of and communicate with. And we've already seen that beautifully happen already. Joao is the main guy in Benfica system. The team was built around him and he was allowed to shine because of it. At Leti, he was forced into a much different position than he was at Benfica and he was definitely not the focal point of that team and their counter-attacking very defensive gameplay was a lot different than what he was used to at Benfica. And now it seems a little bit more like that today at Barcelona. Sure, the system was not nearly built around Joao, but he slides into it very, very well. I think it's very safe to say that even if Felix is even semi-consistent with the form that he is using right now, this is going to be a very special season for him. I would like to formally apologize about this entire video. It was one of the first football videos I had made on my channel and so I think I jumped the gun a little bit and I was putting way too many expectations and being very, I don't know, excited reactionary to what was going on. He had only played 140 minutes and I was saying things like, he's never done things like this in his entire career. No, he's done exactly this his entire career been incredibly streaky. Joao Felix makes this team worse. He doesn't press or move around the way Fedon does and so the team is worse out of possession and he isn't creating or finishing anything when they have the ball. So what's the point? Javi needs to be smarter and honestly stop playing Felix so much because he is not performing. But I can't say the same about his compatriot, Joao Cancelo, because he is one of the best performers in this squad right now. But let's learn a little bit more about him. He lost his place in the team, to be honest, for someone who lost his place in the Portugal team at the World Cup as well. Joao Cancelo, leaving City on loan to Bayern Munich. To be almost as good as a centre-back than a right-back, so Pavar Stanisic, there's no room for Cancelo. Joao Cancelo has had one of the most up-and-down careers of any fullback in recent history. He went from being in the PFA team of the year in 2021 and 2022 to reject it at City just months after and then benched again on his move to Bayern that was meant to revive his career. But when he stepped on the pitch in this moment, he would flip the script and save his reputation forever. But before we admire that game, we first have to look at how he got there. For most of his early years, Joao's life seemed like that of most young footballers. He starred for his local team and became very well-known in town, before getting picked up by a scout from Benfica. And after that, he was quickly signed to Benfica and strapping up his boots for one of the best academy teams in the world. And though at the time his footballing life was very exciting, you can't say the same about his life at home. He came from very modest means in Portugal, where his father had to work a job in Switzerland to help pay the bills, and his mother had to work three different jobs to help pay the bills as well, even though they lived at his grandparents' house. And though on some days, Joao's mother only got to see him on dinnertime, their bond was very strong. He remembers that she would always find the time to bring him to training. His family was incredibly supportive of his footballing dreams, and that would eventually pay off for them when he made his senior debut for Benfica in 2017. But sadly, his mother would never get the chance to see him on that stage. As before he was able to make his debut, he and his family were caught in a terrible car crash that would sadly take his mother's life. At 18 years old, Joao needed to be the breadwinner for the family because his father could no longer go to Switzerland. And even though, while on the pitch, Joao's heart may have been in another place, Joao still shone brightly on the field. Because at 20 years old, Joao learned himself a move to La Liga outfit, Valencia. And here, his expertise would begin to shine. After a few years of finding his footing, the attack-minded, flare-filled fullback was born. And then at 23, just a few years later, here in the lone move to Inter Milan, where he would be the first Portuguese player in history to be included in the Serie A team of the season. The Joao Cancelo name was now on the map for a lot of teams. And after his Inter Milan move, here in the move to Juventus for 40 million euros, making him one of the most expensive fullbacks in history. At Juve, he would join Cristiano and help lead La Vecchia Signora to their eighth consecutive league title. And for the second year in a row, he was included in the Serie A team of the season. And after just one year at Juve, his expertise was recognized by probably one of the best teams in the world, Manchester City. And he would make the world record transfer fee for a fullback that summer. 65 million euros from Juve to Manchester City. And it was at City that Joao became the best fullback in the world. In that system, Joao unlocked his creativity and talent in ways rarely seen before by another player. Sure, he wasn't the best defensively, but it's hard to get upset when he is creating a very big chance every single game. His capacity offensively was more than worth the trade-offs that came with his game defensively. And his talents were absolutely recognized by the rest of the league. Because in his two of his first three seasons at City, he was included in the PFA team of the season, and was one of the most important players, two-man City's titles in two of those years. And it was the exact same story at the beginning of the 22-23 season. Joao was performing at his best with City yet again. Getting assists and netting goals, and starting nearly every single one of City's matches. But after the World Cup in Qatar, something went awry that would seemingly scar Joao's, the family man, the flourishing fullbacks, reputation forever. After being a mainstay in every single team he has been a part of since he turned pro, he was now seen on the bench for City. Pep seemingly just did not need him. And Joao, being the confident and ambitious player that we've come to know so far, made it known that he was upset. And this is where Bayern Munich comes in. In Munich, this looked like a shoe-in for Joao to log regular minutes, and continue playing top-level Champions League football the way he wanted to. But after just three games of starting, he was back on the bench at Bayern now. And whether this was due to Nogelman's three-at-the-back tactics, or Joao's terrible work rate at practice, we can't know for sure. For whatever reason, he was on the bench again. Joao Cancelo yet again found himself as the scapegoat for the media, and his reputation was continually declining. And though he would perform admirably on the tack when he did play, it was a very similar story, a lot of time on the bench. So when it came time for Bayern to purchase him or send him back to Pep, they happily boxed him up and shipped him right off to Manchester, instead of fulfilling his $61 million option to buy. So now he was back. The once best attacking fullback in the world had just fallen out at two clubs in three months. And all the excitement and joy that he brought to the fans just a year earlier seemingly was all-forgot. But lucky enough for him, there was a very struggling club, just a few thousand kilometres south of him, that just so happened to need a right back and also be Joao's favorite boyhood club, Barcelona. And though the team desperately needed a right back, there was a lot of concern about Joao's attitude. Could he cut it for Barcelona or would he just be a problem? He rejected a ton of money to join Barcelona to join his boyhood club because he wanted to make his dreams a reality. The dreams I'm sure he shared with his mother as they walked to training early in his career. Joao made an emotional decision to join Barcelona instead of a financial one or maybe even a sporting one to a more successful team. But from what we know about Joao, from when he had to support his family to moving to Manchester City and moving all over the world to play football and always succeeding is that he thrives with pressure on his shoulders. And at Barcelona, he was going to have a lot of it and I think that's what he wanted. So when Joao stepped on the pitch that day for Chaby's team, he would have the chance to rewrite his history, to change his reputation, to go back to being that wonderfully creative and talented player that everyone had gotten so much joy out of watching. Sure, Joao Cancelo has had an incredible career so far with a lot of success. But these next few years, and this year probably specifically, is going to be incredibly important. But I'm very excited to watch it and I just hope that you are as well. Joao Cancelo was signed to be Barcelona's right back. But for me, he has to play on the left because the team is too poor without three centre-backs in this squad. There isn't really much to say right now because what I said in that video still stands. He is still playing very well. But I guess you could say that even with Cancelo on the left and three centre-backs in the squad, the defense is still struggling. And a lot of that has to do with Araujo. But before we learn about where he is right now, we have to see a little bit about where he came from. Here comes the corner, Araujo, 2-0. The noise has been made as the Neaculia comes into the goal, keep us lost it. What a remarkable clearance that was off the line from Araujo. During his time with Barcelona B, Ronald Araujo had a note hanging over his bedside that read, you are going to be the best centre-back in Europe. At 24 years old, he is already quickly on his way to achieving that goal, having received a 1 billion-year-old release clause at Barcelona. But how did he become one of the best centre-backs in the world? And where will he go from there? Araujo's path to success is very similar to a lot of players, but has a few key differences that has helped him become the player that he is today. In his hometown, Araujo had been playing against adults since he was at least 13. And from them, he learned that there would never be any messing around. So he learned to adapt to the merciless style of play that he experienced as a kid, and you can absolutely see traces of that in his play today. Growing up, he would play for his hometown club until he was 17 years old, when he would move to Montevideo to play for Rintistas. Where he would get this, play centre-back for the very first time 17 years into his footballing journey. Maybe that's why he's so decent in the air today. However, one of the biggest curiosities about Araujo's upbringing is that his family always put school ahead of football. His parents refused to let him play unless he received good grades and even shut down a move to Boca Juniors when he was young because they wanted him to have his priorities a certain way, a way that many families around the world don't have them. But his mother assured him that if it was his goal to become a professional footballer, he would be one. And well, she was right. After a few years of whirlwind football in South America, Araujo fended off offers from Madrid, Villarreal, and Atleti to join Barcelona beat. And as you can imagine, that football that he became so accustomed to in Uruguay was about as foreign as it possibly could have been from what he would see at La Masia. Before Barcelona, he had never needed to play with the ball as a defender. He learned that either his keeper would boot the ball away or the centre-backs would receive the pass and the burden of the boot now belonged to them. There was no playing out from the back. It was just mayhem. But now he had decided to join one of the teams that plays out from the back the most in the world. So he either had to adapt or leave. He purchased a cheap Barcelona branded ball from the market outside the Camp Nou, took it home, and every day after training, he would, just like most football fans around the world, grab that ball and dribble and pass his way around his tiny space, rewiring his muscle memory to become a more calm and composed player on the ball. After just one year with Barça B, continuing a trend of never spending too much time with one squad, he made his debut for Barcelona in a four-nil demolition of Sevilla on the 6th of October 2019, where he would get his name on the score sheet, not for scoring but for receiving a red card, 15 minutes, into his first team debut with Barcelona. It's safe to say that that South American flair, that powerful mentality, was still a huge part of his game, no matter how hard he tried to assimilate himself to the Barcelona way. However, it's precisely that difference that made Araujo so great and so immediately impactful for the club. Sure, in his first season, he looked incredibly clunky on the ball, something that today you can't exactly say he's fully addressed, but he made up for that in ways that no one else in that squad could. He makes sure that he can be as ready as possible for whatever arises, and in those few moments that he may not have been ready, he has the athletic capacity to make up for it. It's like Araujo has the tenacity and power of Puyol with the physique of Maldini, and shall I say the attacking ability of Ramos? Maybe it's a bit too early to say that he has all of these in his arsenal already, but the potential is there and he gives himself the best opportunity at unlocking that potential with his obsession for football off of the pitch. And look, he's carrying a knock right now, so I'm not gonna get too excited that he is playing poorly and he's off his game forever now, because I think he's just injured, he broke his jaw, so of course his communication skills and his playing the ball with his head is gonna be a little bit poor. I'm honestly more concerned that I seem to be jinxing all of our best players, but let's give it to the end of the year before we start tearing me down. But I am incredibly proud of the video I made about Frankie Dayong, because he is still to this day one of the most important players in this squad, even if he doesn't get the most headlines and isn't the flashiest player, a trait that has been with him since he was a little kid. Young Frankie Dayong had that talent, that spark that only the most highly touted players do. That spark to be remembered for years by the town that you grew up in and to have your youth kit on the walls of your local pub. That's how Frankie is remembered in Arkel Hollins today. However, the key point in his history that we must focus on is his time at IACS. Frankie didn't have the same jump to stardom as a teenager that we have seen with Gavi and Pedri, because after making his debut in the ERA DVC two days before his 18th birthday, Frankie would only see 101 minutes of top flight football by the time he turned 20. But with all the injuries we've seen from Pedri, that might not be a bad thing. IACS nurtured Frankie, allowing him to excel in the youth team, receiving many accolades, and allowing him to grow his understanding of the game. His former IACS coach remembered that even in his youth, Frankie Dayong played with a certain risk about his game, constantly carrying the ball past three or four players, potentially leaving his defense exposed, solely to open up options on the attack. That is the essence of Frankie football, and soon his risky play would be looked at more as an asset than a liability. When Erick Tenhog was appointed IACS manager in December 2017, Frankie Dayong's position as the libero in IACS' starting lineup was sealed. In the following season, Frankie played with so much confidence in his play to continue his marauding runs no matter the opposition. What he did against Groningen in the league is exactly what he did when they knocked out Juventus and Real Madrid in the Champions League, helping IACS to make one of the most incredible runs in that competition in recent years. By the end of that season, he was being pursued by all of the best clubs in the world. But for him, there was only ever one, FC Barcelona. However, something would arise from this signing that followed Frankie and overshadowed much of his Catalonian career, his price tag and contract. Bartomeo was the club president at the time, and he will always be remembered for the financial lunacy that his regime forced upon Barça, helping to push them into this severe debt that we see them in today. And you will soon understand why, but Frankie and public opinion of him have been a victim of this. Barça would eventually pay IACS a total of 86 million euros for the Dutchman's services. However, his contract may have made it even worse. Bartomeo and his goons would give Frankie an insane contract that would quickly rise to unsustainable levels, eventually leading to the point where the club had to ask him to defer some of his payments just two years into his contract with Barça, which is why today, he is the second highest paid footballer in all of Europe. Frankie has been one of the most consistent players for the Blaugrana since he joined, playing more than 2,000 minutes each year and being relatively injury resistant, something we have not been able to say about any of our top signings for a very long time. But just like in his first few years at IACS, his first few seasons at Barça were a bit restrained, and he wasn't playing with the freedom that he learned in the last season at IACS. With Barça's mentality of obsessive ball possession and circulation, Frankie just did not necessarily thrive the way he did at IACS. And a lot of people at Barça probably thought of Frankie as the Busquets pivot replacement, but he failed to impress there because everything that made Frankie so incredible at IACS did not exactly blend well with what is required from the Barcelona pivot. But a lot of those things that Frankie was really good at were just not needed from him or expected from him in the positions he played in. Now, if Frankie were a Spanish player from La Masia on Academy Team Wages, sentiment around his performances might have been a little bit different in those early years. In a lot of his games, Frankie made important decisions on the offensive side and defensive side of the ball that saved Barcelona matches. And he still made those impressive runs that made his name at IACS. While at Barça, Frankie was always adapting to whatever position they needed him, especially when Coman was in charge who often played him as a center back. He was versatile and useful for the team, but when Pundit spoke about Frankie, it was rarely ever praiseful. Most of them reminiscing about how incredible he was for IACS and about how he never shows that anymore at Barça. And this would all come to head in the summer of 2023. After years of very decent service to the club, Barcelona thanked him by leaking the terms of Frankie Dayong's contracts to the Catalan media and forcing him out of the club. But because Frankie was playing for the badge that he always dreamed of, he proved to be a loyal player, something that a lot of players can't say today. So Frankie stood his ground and played out the 22-23 season on the same salary that Bartomeu had promised him. But by the end of that year, not much had changed. He played well, but a lot of his performances were outshined by other players on the team. Clearly, the Barça boards still believed that they were not getting their money's worth out of him because they tried to sell him again in the summer of 2023. But it played out precisely as it had the year before. However, the beginning of the 23-24 season showed us that maybe, just maybe, Frankie's becoming even better in the side than he ever was at IACS. Now, the team was far from perfect, showing lame performances in their opening match against Hitafe, as well as in following matches against Seltavigo and Osasuna. But through all of that confusion came some very impressive performances from newcomer Joao Félix and 16-year-old Le Minimont and Frankie Dayong. After years of always missing something, Barcelona's new look midfield felt whole again, even without Pedri and with the aging Romeu and Gundavan. All of this came to be because of Frankie. Xavi must have finally created an understanding between the team and Frankie that allowed Frankie to play a much more cohesive style of football. Frankie seemed to have unlocked that final ball that could break down low blocks and open up matches perfectly. The team suddenly worked much more cohesively and played through the middle in a way that they haven't in a very long time because of the way that Frankie fit into the midfield puzzle. At the beginning of the season, from August 16th to September 23rd, Barcelona played seven matches winning six and drawing only one when Frankie started all seven of those matches. However, the importance of Frankie wouldn't be known until he went off injured against Celta on September 23rd. Since then, Barca have played 10 matches winning six, drawing two and losing two. Now, that's not a terrible record. But without Dayong, they continually struggle to play through the middle and have a ton of trouble in buildup. Moving the ball forward from midfield, from the defensive line, is Frankie's specialty and he was just beginning to look like the Frankie who played with joy and freedom at Ajax. But he was struck down when things were finally getting going and when the media wasn't obsessed with getting rid of him, getting him away from Barca to save them the money. No one was talking about the money because it wasn't important because he was playing incredible. If Barcelona are able to turn this season around, it will be because of Frankie. I'm going to be honest, Frankie is my MVP for the season so far. He has been the most consistent player thus far and maybe if Gavi didn't get injured, he would be the MVP now. But Frankie has been so consistent and it's hard to ignore. However, in the most recent games, Frankie's playing in a different position, which means he isn't capable of making those long progressive runs that he has been known for for most of his career. And I'm going to be honest, I don't think Frankie is going to unlock his full potential this season. I'm sure Barca are going to try to sign somebody and might actually pull through and do it, but I don't want to get too excited about who it's going to be because I have no idea who it's going to be. And honestly, I don't think La Porta or Gavi even knows who it will be because the financial situation is so confusing right now. In several of my videos, I said that Barcelona might win the Champions League. And do I think they're going to win? I can't say for sure. I mean, it's a little far-fetched and it's very optimistic as I tend to be. But they're going to be competitive because I think they might be out of La Liga and I think that's okay. I think they can be competitive in the Champions League. They just need a little luck with their draws. For Barcelona to really win any titles this season, things are going to have to come together in very fortunate ways. And though I think we're going to get out of this year with some silverware, I don't really know what's going to happen. But if you've made it to the end of this video, thank you so much for watching and thank you so much for all of the support this year. I have wanted to be a YouTuber my whole life and these past few months have made that possible. And I can't be thankful enough. For the final time this year, thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Peace.