Barcelona had been holding up relatively well until in terms of injuries until October, as they watched the stars of their rivals Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid drop like flies. Yet now, they have lost Jules Kounde, Frenkie de Jong, Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha and Pedri to injury issues, while the status of Lamine Yamal and Alejandro Balde is uncertain at this point.
Yet with just Ronald Araujo, Andreas Christensen and Inigo Martinez available in central defence, all of which have suffered from injury issues in the past 12 months, Xavi Hernandez may consider dipping into the Barca Atletic team.
The two obvious choices would be Pau Cubarsi (16) and Mikayil Faye (19), who have been starting for Rafael Marquez.
“They are two players who understand each other quite well both defensively and offensively. Both have good ball control, maybe Mika is more forceful, especially because of his physical ability. Cuba is more methodical, more intelligent in personal duels.”
“Both are performing. Cuba surprises me even though I already knew about his quality because he is still very young for this level and even so he behaves like an experienced player,” Marquez told Sport.
Perhaps the more obvious choice to call up would be Faye, who can also play at left-back and may be more ready for the physical rigours of the senior game. However Cubarsi has another factor working in his favour.
The 16-year-old is registered for Barcelona in the Champions League as a homegrown under-19 player, whereas Faye as a new signing was inelegible to be registested in that capacity. He would have had to have been given a first-team spot in the squad.
With a double-header against Shakhtar Donetsk coming up in the next few weeks, Xavi might will no doubt prefer to keep just one of them in the first-team dynamics, and Cubarsi seems like he may have the edge in that regard, purely in terms of availability.
