Pablo Martín Páez Gavira, ‘Gavi’, and Aurélien Tchouaméni are the most prominent names in the final stretch of the 2021/22 season....CONTINUE READING
Whilst the young pearl from ‘Los Palacios y Villafranca’ is going from exhibition to exhibition with the Spanish senior national team and negotiating his renewal with FC Barcelona, the promising youngster from Rouen, the capital of the Normandy region, has committed to Real Madrid until 2028 and has earned his place in the French national team.
The two biggest clubs in Spanish football are celebrating the extraordinary performances of two players who are set to be key players in their respective backbones over the next decade.
The differences between the blaugrana squad and the Madrid’s are considerable. Barça’s sporting management will have to work hard this summer to get rid of the large number of players Xavi doesn’t need, and reduce the tremendous impact on the accounts of the large salaries of other players, emoluments typical of times of abundance; despite the unexpected ‘no’ of Kylian Mbappé, Madrid are putting together a very competitive team that combines past, present and future to perfection.
Beyond all the obvious disparities, the two sides have a common denominator in their midfields: both teams have been able to ensure a generational replacement of high quality and high calibre.
Barça’s unfinished business
In one of the most complicated moments in their history on a sporting, economic and social level, Barça have received two incredibly good news in the last two seasons.
The 2020/21 season saw the emergence of Pedri and this season it has been Gavi who has made the breakthrough with his magical cocktail of skill and grit. What the Canary Islander and the Andalusian have achieved has reached levels unsuspected even by the most optimistic.
The best thermometer of their arrival to the elite is that Frenkie de Jong has gone from being an unconditional and strategic bet of the club to become one of the famous financial levers of Joan Laporta to revive the club. In record time, the 19 and 17-year-old gems have established themselves in the eleven.
La Masia has brought another of its most promising productions to the first team: Nico González. The Galician midfielder, however, has not had as much continuity and, despite being the oldest (20 years old), still has a step up the competitive ladder.
Xavi sees him as an inside player, so in principle he cannot be the replacement for Sergio Busquets that some youth team coaches once imagined. In fact, the search for a replacement for the captain will once again be the demanding mission of the technical secretariat in the planning of the squad. Nothing is forever. Neither is Badia’s.
Homework done at the Bernabeu
The costly addition of Tchouaméni was the culmination of a long period of good work at Valdebebas. While Casemiro, Luka Modric and Toni Kroos have formed one of the best central midfields in Madrid’s history, the White offices have been working hard to ensure that the change of generation can be immediate when it becomes necessary.
Although the likes of Martin Odegaard, Takefusa Kubo and Mateo Kovacic, among others, have been left by the wayside, the capital outfit have Aurélien himself, Fede Valverde and Eduardo Camavinga ready to modernise the midfield in the short term.
We will see how the figure of Dani Ceballos fits into this puzzle. The Utrera native is under contract until 2023 and it seems that he has run out of room in the Madrid set-up.
At 25 years of age, the Andalusian needs to play. Since his arrival in 2017, he has only defended the white shirt a total of 3,159 minutes. To give you an idea: Modric, in this season alone, has already spent more time on the pitch (3,435′).
