17-year-old Barcelona defender sets a new standard in La Liga | OneFootball

It is natural for FC Barcelona to have some of the most exciting and talented forwards in world football. Given their heritage and attacking style of play, La Blaugrana have almost always had great attacking players to rely on. Even now, Hansi Flick’s Barcelona arguably has Europe’s most in-form strike force at its disposal.

From within that frontline, and across the Barcelona team, most of the plaudits always seem to go to players who score or assist more often. Especially when it comes to youngsters, the likes of 17-year-old Lamine Yamal end up turning heads everywhere, and rightfully so.

Yamal’s development and progress is exceptional, and he deserves all the praise he gets and much more. However, simply because Yamal is out of this world in many ways does not mean that there is not another 17-year-old talent from La Masia at Barcelona who deserves the same kind of praise either.

To keep things short and straightforward, there is such a player besides Lamine Yamal. That player would be 17-year-old Pau Cubarsi, who had yet another great display against Deportivo Alaves in the recent 3-0 victory in La Liga and his performance was quite commendable.

However, during the game, the player ended up setting an entirely new standard for players to look up to in La Liga this season. As pointed out by WhoScored, Cubarsi ended up making a total of 111 accurate passes against Alaves, the most by any single player in any given La Liga match this season.

It was already well-established that the young 17-year-old defender is an excellent ball-playing defender, but this new statistic only further cements his capabilities. Moreover, he remains a crucial part of Hansi Flick’s Barcelona to break through opposition lines and these numbers only prove just how influential he can be.

Alongside Inigo Martinez, he has also been vital in effectively setting up Barça’s offside traps this season. With that tactic also being the most successful of its kind across Europe’s top leagues this season, it only goes to show just how impactful Cubarsi has been without getting as much of the spotlight as his more attack-minded teammates.