17-year-old starlet looking to retain a place in the Barcelona first team | OneFootball

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Still reeling from their defeat to Paris Saint Germain which saw them get eliminated from the UEFA Champions League, FC Barcelona already have another high-stakes match awaiting them on Sunday. The Catalans will be facing their traditional rivals, Real Madrid, at the Santiago Bernabeu.

With only seven games left in this season’s La Liga campaign and the Merengues already having an 8-point lead over them, a loss for Barcelona will effectively end their aspirations to retain the league title this season.

Fortunately for Xavi, there are only two players unavailable for this match, i.e. the long-term absences of Alejandro Balde and Gavi. The rest of the players are all available to play, as Cancelo, Inigo Martinez, and Lewandowski all served their suspensions for yellow card accumulation in the last match against Cadiz.

But this availability of players creates another problem for Xavi, as he will have to make a decision on which one player to keep out of the squad for the upcoming game. Barcelona can take only 22 players for this game, but there are currently 23 players training with the first team.

As SPORT has noted, despite the return of most of his players, Xavi still has the youngster Hector Fort training under him. However, it remains to be seen whether the Barcelona head coach will take the youngster for the Madrid trip.

Still only 17 years old, Hector Fort is already showing his talents which convince Barcelona that he can be a right-back for the first team in the future.

He still has a lot to learn to make this possibility a reality, but he has been growing at a good rate recently and has all the ingredients to succeed in this endeavor.

His personality and competitiveness are two of his characterizing traits, which the 17-year-old has already shown at the highest level despite his youth and lack of experience.