When Lionel Messi left Barcelona in the summer of 2021 the club’s fans wanted the No 10 shirt retired in his honour. One of their arguments was: who would want to wear it now anyway?
Step forward Spain striker Ansu Fati, who was only 18 at the time.
The club had offered the No 10 to Sergio Aguero but he did not want it. They offered it to Philippe Coutinho but he turned it down. Then they turned to Fati and his response was: ‘Speak to the club captains. If it’s OK with them then I’ll take it.’
Undaunted by responsibility, the teenager — whose parents migrated to Spain from the Republic of Guinea-Bissau — now has new weight on his shoulders. If Spain are to do more than make up the numbers in Qatar the consensus is that it will need to be Fati who provides the magic.
That is why Spain coach Luis Enrique included him in his squad despite him having only started three league games this season.
Last season — the first campaign wearing Messi’s 10 — was a write-off. He started just three matches, scoring four goals, after suffering a meniscus injury in his left knee that required three operations. He was out for 10 months.
Fati has been slowed down by physical setbacks before. He broke his leg playing for Barcelona’s Under 15s but came back to debut for the senior team aged 16 years and 300 days. Had the story stopped there it would have been special enough.
He had arrived in Spain aged seven from Guinea-Bissau following his father, Bori, who enrolled him in local teams in Sevilla where the family settled. Bori never realised just how good his son was until Barcelona club director Albert Puig came to his house with a contract for him to sign.
Fati turned up at Barcelona in 2012 as a 10-year-old and every team that he played for from Under 13s through to Under 16s won their league in style.
But the story has since gone national. And he will make his World Cup debut on Wednesday against Costa Rica only 23 days after his 19th birthday.
He has had to deal with racism along the way. One match report in Spanish newspaper ABC in 2020 likened him to ‘one of those very young black street sellers running away when someone shouts that the police have arrived’.
The report was completely atypical and widely condemned in Spain. His then-club teammate Antoine Greizmann, tweeted: ‘Ansu is an exceptional kid and he deserves respect like anyone. No to racism.’
For one so young he carries all the pressure with mature serenity — his mentality appears to be bullet proof. His body is a little more fragile.
‘Stop talking about his injury,’ said head coach Luis Enrique before Spain’s last pre-World Cup friendly. ‘He is just like any other player, he gets injured and he recovers.’
Fati is not like any other player and his manager knows it, hence the attempts at quietening the constant murmurs.
Fati started that friendly against Jordan last week and he took just 13 minutes to repay his coach with a goal.
It is being in the right place at the right time that is the youngest scorer in Spain’s history’s greatest and most frequent trick.
In those three starts for Barcelona this season he has three goals. For Spain, who have only one orthodox No 9 in Alvaro Morata, Ansu’s happy knack could be priceless. No wonder they are desperate to see him cope with back-to-back games as soon as possible.
‘His knee injury is long forgotten,’ his dad Bori said this week. ‘Physically he is fine he just needs playing time.’
It is not ideal to be getting that playing time in vital World Cup games but Luis Enrique’s belief is unshakeable — Ansu can handle it just as he has handled every challenge that has come his way so far.
realBull
12
Healthy ansu is as deadly in front of goal as young Ronaldo. Seem to always find a way