For teenagers, five months without playing football is a long time. For 19-year-old Sergi Rosanas, who finally returned from a dislocated shoulder after half of the season, it was more heartbreak and the beginning of another layoff.
Rosanas was injured in the third minute of Barcelona B’s 2-1 win over Olot, being replaced after six minutes by Oriol Busquets. Álvaro Sanz has done an admirable job at right-back since Andrés Solano, on loan from Atlético Madrid, went down for the season with a knee injury. With Sanz unavailable today, Francisco Pimienta immediately inserted Rosanas right into the starting XI. Prior to this match, Rosanas had to wait until this month to be registered for the second half of the campaign.
It could be a crushing blow to a promising career and almost déjà vu for those that followed Mateu Morey’s stint with Barcelona B before moving to Borussia Dortmund. Here’s hoping that the injury isn’t as bad as it looks and Rosanas can continue his career sooner than later.
After watching their teammate go down in such a way, it would be tough to blame Pimienta’s team if they let the game get away from them. Instead, they turned in another fine performance and got goals anyway they could.
Busquets came on for Rosanas, moving Nico González to right-back, a new position for the midfielder. González barely put a foot wrong and helped support the midfield when possible. Busquets, meanwhile, played as the pivot and turned in the best performance of his injury-plagued season.
This pushed Jandro Orellana into an interior role, and the 20-year-old handled that with ease. For both he and Ilaix Moriba, your job is easier when you can give the boy to the best player in Segunda División B, Álex Collado, and let him go to work.
Olot couldn’t keep up with Collado or his teammates and this unrelenting attack led to the foul that led to Orellana’s sensational free kick which gave Barça B the lead.
Olot’s striker Juan Delgado pulled one back a few minutes later, but Barcelona B soon settled down and controlled the rest of the game. Alejandro Balde, in particular, kept Olot’s wingers and midfielders pinned to their half of the field. Culers haven’t seen a performance like this with Barcelona B from Balde yet, but this is hopefully a sign of things to come. He was solid defensively and used his pace and dribbling to open up the channels for those around him, both on the flank and in the center of the park.
Barça B kept up the pressure and were rewarded off a corner kick with an own goal from Olot. Collado was aiming for Arnau Comas on the near post and found the head of Pedro del Campo instead, but with the same desired result.
In the second half, Olot did find some fight and Pimienta’s team were forced to suffer for the three points. Yet, the team showed resiliency and have now won four of their last five to take their place at third in the table.
Dan Hilton is an American journalist, broadcaster, and current Editor-in-Chief of BarcaBlog. Extensive work as a play-by-play broadcaster, producer behind the scenes, and quite average player in his younger years has given him a well-rounded and informative perspective on the sport. Alongside BarcaBlog founder Francesc, Dan started The Barcelona Podcast in 2017
