Fermín López: La Masias Underlooked Talent
Barcelona are back to displaying dominance in La Liga after their 7-0 win against Valencia. They snapped their four-game winless streak in La Liga which was starting to become worrisome for the club. Frenkie de Jong, Ferrán Torres, and Ballon d'Or favorite Raphinha opened the scoring, bagging three goals before the 15th minute. Robert Lewandowski, off the bench, scored the sixth, followed by an own goal by Valencia’s César Tárrega to secure Barcelona's seventh. The hero of the day for Barcelona was Fermín López, scoring the fourth and fifth goals and providing two assists of his own. López, who is among Barcelona’s young rising star talent, seems to be the one that has become forgotten. López might not get the starting minutes as his other La Masias teammates, Lamine Yamal, and Pau Cubarsí, but his talent is as elite as theirs.
López joined La Masía as a U14 from Real Betis Academy. Making his way through the ranks, he played with all of Barcelona’s youth teams, eventually making Barcelona’s second team, Barcelona Atlétic. López was shortly loaned out to lower-division Spanish side Linares in the 2022-2023 season before he would officially make his debut for Barcelona’s first team. Former Barcelona manager Xavi Hernandez was the man who allowed López to make his debut in the second team. López would make his name known to the fans fairly quickly during a friendly against Real Madrid in the United States, where he scored Barcelona’s second with a strong left-footed outside-the-box shot. From this moment forward, López made sure his name would be one that was regularly called up to play for the club.
López’s debut season for the Barcelona first team included a lot of impressive moments for a 20-year-old. A frequent player for the team on and off the bench, López scored eight goals in his first La Liga campaign, most notably a goal against rivals Real Madrid in the Bernabeu during a 3-2 loss. In the Champions League, López scored a decisive goal in Barcelona’s 3-1 win at home against Italian side Napoli to advance the team to the Quarterfinals for the first time since the 2019-2020 season. In the summer, López would earn his first nod to the Spanish national team, being a star player during their Olympic gold medal win. He would score six goals and provide two assists, two of those goals coming in the final as Spain would beat hosts France 5-3. López would once again be called up for an international tournament in the same summer as he would be a part of Spain winning the 2024 Euros. López would only compete in one match off the bench during the tournament, but being selected to the squad showed his capabilities as a player. So far in López’s second season at Barcelona, he has fallen down the pecking order to players like Marc Casado and Dani Olmo; however, he has still provided key contributions thus far. López was key in Barcelona’s 4-1 victory against German Giants Bayern Munich, giving two assists to Lewandowski and Raphinha. López might only have three goals and five assists across all competitions this season, but stats speak far from what he brings to the club.
