Francisco Pimienta and a Barcelona B side led by a captain (Monchu) and entire back-line that has since departed (Akieme, Cuenca, Araujo, Morer) fell to Sabadell in the final for promotion last season. There is little argument that it would be more beneficial for Barça B to be competing in the second division of Spanish football instead of the third. A higher level and better competition should translate to talents being more prepared for the first team.
This is a good rule of thumb, but it isn’t dogma. Ansu Fati jumped from Juvenil A to the first team (unprecedented by the way), but Carles Perez and Riqui Puig both made contributions last season while going from the third division to the first division. Perez has continued to show that his third division performances weren’t flukes with his showings for Roma this season.
Barcelona B is generally a younger team, consisting mostly of academy graduates and a few 20-something veterans accustomed to lower level football to fill in positions of need. Usually that number of cavalry is anywhere between four to ten players, but if you don’t count Matheus Pereira and Rey Manaj, who arrived last January, just two players have arrived to help out with promotion. Those are Joaquin Zeballos, 23-year-old striker on loan from Girona, and Andres Solano, 22-year-old right-back on loan from Atletico Madrid B. Some will go with the hard line that Barcelona B should not be bringing in talent to help with promotion – move another player you already have in those spots – but these are at least two positions of dire need for the B team.
Hiroke Abe, and 18-year-old Gerard ‘Peque’ Fernandez, both somewhere between a false ‘9’ and an inverted winger, have been filling in at that position. So has Manaj, but it seems the club was trying to move on from him this summer and I can’t imagine he’ll be getting many minutes under Pimienta. Since moving Abel Ruiz and Alejandro Marques last January, Barcelona B has not had a natural goalscorer to finish the chances for all their talented playmakers. Zeballos could be that man.
As for right-back, only injured Sergi Rosanas, who isn’t expected back until late November at the earliest, is a natural at the position. In the preseason Pimienta was filling in the position with centre-backs. A better fit like Solano could help bring some much-need balance to the team and allow the players with higher ceilings to thrive in their natural positions.
Now that I’ve made the case for why Culers shouldn’t sweat the arrival of two players, it’s time to explain why their arrival likely won’t affect promotion. Every Barcelona B squad is young, but this year’s version is particularly young. Last season, the average age of the Barcelona B XI was somewhere between 20 and 21. This season, it’ll be closer to 19. That doesn’t sound like much, but when we’re talking about professional experience, a little can go a long way.
Even though 21-year-old Oriol Busquets has returned to the club and Alex Collado stuck around as he recovers from injury, the players with the highest ceilings this year are still very much teenagers. 19-year-old Konrad de la Fuente, who should be returning shortly to Barcelona B as they get their real season underway, should be a major piece. Joining him on the forward line as regulars should be Abe (21), Peque (18), new arrival from Brazil Gustavo Maia (19), and Nils Mortimer (19). The midfield will be led by Busquets and Pereira, but it will also heavily rely on Nico Gonzalez (18), Lucas de Vega (20), Alvaro Sanz (19), and of course Ilaix Moriba (17) and returning starter Jandro Orellana (20). Behind them, 21-year-old Oscar Mingueza will need to go from regular substitute to defensive leader, because he is accompanied by Santi Ramos Mingo (18), Arnau Comas (20), and Igor (19) in the middle. Solano will hold down the right-back spot with Rosanas (19) backing him up, but the left-back spot may be split by Mika Marmol (19) and Juvenil A player Alejandro Balde (17). At least in net, all three of Inaki Pena (21), Arnau Tenas (19), and Lazar Carevic (21) are capable of winning games in the third division.
So other than the two new additions and a few of the holdovers, Pimienta’s entire squad is 21 or younger, a far cry from what Barcelona B looked like a few seasons ago when they were bringing in 24 and 25-year-old recruits. Results though, could get ugly, and that’s where trust in this process must come into play.
Pimienta will be tasked with making sure that these promising players don’t get comfortable with losing, but don’t be surprised if results don’t go their way on a regular basis. Staving off relegation may be more of the objective than gaining promotion.
That said, and yes, I know hype is dangerous, but this group has an unusually high number of players that have been cited as having higher potential than the average La Masia graduate. Konrad and Ilaix Moriba were already selected to participate in preseason with Ronald Koeman, with Konrad remaining with the first team on their bench. But they aren’t the only ones. Pena and Tenas both could fill in at first team level if not for Neto, Balde has been considered the most promising left-back in the system for a few years now, and Nico Gonzalez has always done special things as an attacking midfielder. Orellana had a down year last season, but could rebound nicely this year. Gustavo Maia has also turned some heads in the preseason and hopefully he continues to prove early skeptics wrong. Add to that group 16-year-old Ilias Akhomach, who made his Barça B debut in their final preseason match against Cornella, and you have a pretty special “class” on your hands. If he wasn’t with the first team, Fati would be the best player in this squad. Maybe La Masia isn’t “dead” after all. Yet, to see the fruits of Pimienta’s labors, there may be some storms along the way, but patience will go a long way this season.
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.
