What next for Ansu Fati?
The heir to Lionel Messi has already suffered a career's worth of injury setbacks, but may finally be on the road to recovery.
Barcelona were leading 1-0, roughly ten minutes into the second half, when Ferran Torres found Ansu Fati in space just shy of the halfway line. Fati turned on the ball and surged forward, squaring up a retreating Elche defender as he approached the penalty box.
He dropped a shoulder, fainting left, before nudging the ball onto his right to fire a low shot past the despairing dive of Edgar Badia. The whole thing looked effortless, and as the ball nestled in the Elche net Fati jogged nonchalantly to the corner flag to congregate with his celebrating teammates.
Ostensibly it all looked so easy, showcasing the grace and confidence of an elite forward with a clinical disposition. After all, it was the champions elect versus certified relegation fodder. But for Ansu Fati that goal came as blessed relief after a tough few years, a difficult month, and a very tricky week.
The young Spaniard is battling his way back to the top, a path he’d already trodden more than three years earlier.
So what has happened to Ansu Fati since his astonishing breakthrough in 2019 and, with rumours swirling about his future, what on earth will happen next?
Ansu Fati, record breaker
The 20-year-old made his 26th La Liga appearance for the club in Saturday’s 4-0 win over Elche. It has been a glorious domestic campaign for the Catalans, one that sees them boast a 12-point advantage over second-placed Real Madrid in the league and a 1-0 lead over them in the Copa Del Rey semi-final tie.
On the pitch, the club has made undoubted strides forward and is set to capture the league title for the first time since the departure of Lionel Messi. And yet the career of Fati, once prophesised as the Argentine’s long-term replacement, has faltered.
It is easy to forget now just how sensational the first few months of Ansu Fati in professional football were. But, fortunately, that prodigious early spell was captured in the record books…
- 31 August 2019: Barcelona’s youngest goalscorer
- 14 September 2019: Youngest starter at the Camp Nou
- 14 September 2019: Youngest player to score and assist in a La Liga game
- 17 September 2019: Barcelona’s youngest Champions League debutant
- 10 December 2019: Youngest goalscorer in Champions League history
By the end of this period, this astonishing streak of record breaking, Fati was still only a month past his 17th birthday.
More accolades came in 2020 when he was nominated for the Golden Boy and became the youngest goalscorer in the history of the Spanish national team, breaking a record that had stood for 95 years.
But while the early months of his young career were littered with broken records, the following years have been defined mainly by his injury record…
- 8 November 2020 – Meniscal laceration (329 days)
- 27 October 2021 – Knee problems (5 days)
- 7 November 2021 – Hamstring injury (65 days)
- 21 January 2022 – Hamstring injury (97 days)
- 24 February 2023 – Knee problems (6 days)
Since that first knee injury in late 2020, Fati has missed a total of 84 Barcelona games due to injury. Factor in the additional time that it takes to force oneself back into a squad as talented as Barcelona’s and it is easy to see why his progress has been stunted so dramatically.
In September 2021, shortly after the departure of Lionel Messi, Barcelona handed the coveted No. 10 shirt to the man that they hoped would lead the club into a glorious new era, who would replace the player who many believe is the greatest to ever play to the game.
To say the shirt weighed heavily on Fati, then an 18-year-old who had been out injured for the previous ten months, is an understatement. In 2023 he retains that iconic jersey but his role in Barcelona’s future is very much up in the air.
What next for Ansu Fati?
Despite missing the equivalent of two whole seasons of football, Ansu Fati has managed to fit a lot into his young career. Aged just 20 he already suffered a lifetime’s worth of injuries but things won’t get any easier with his return to full fitness. Life at the elite is remorselessly cut-throat and rumours of his departure have been swirling in recent days.
Last weekend’s goal against Elche should have felt like the beginning of a glorious resurgence, but instead it was cast as a brief moment of calm after a week that saw his relationship with the club become increasingly tense.
On Tuesday evening his father, Bori Fati, spoke to Spanish radio station El Partidaxo de COPE about his son’s prospects at Camp Nou. It was not, to say the least, entirely positive.
Bori, himself a former footballer, said that he believed Fati needed to leave the club, admitting that he had told his son to do exactly that.
“I have told Ansu that it is better for him to have a change of scenery,” Bori Fati said. “I’m angry, it’s true. As a father, I see Ansu [only playing] for a short time and it pisses me off.”
For now it seems that Ansu is willing to stay and fight for his place but his father’s outburst added another level of scrutiny on the young Spaniard’s performance. The interview became an unnecessary and undeserved complication for a player still trying to rediscover his best form at one of the world’s most unforgiving clubs.
Meanwhile, there have been numerous rumours of interest from clubs overseas, eager to snap up an underappreciated but undoubted talent. That transfer talk has only been heightened in recent months by Barcelona’s financial troubles and Fati’s struggle to tie down a starting berth.
His status as an academy-produced player makes him a particularly lucrative commodity for the club; not because of any sense of his ‘Barcelona DNA’, but for the cold hard fact that any fee they receive for him can be booked as pure profit. As the club strains every sinew to comply with La Liga’s financial restrictions, Fati represents an extremely valuable asset.
As it stands, however, Xavi Hernandez appears keen to reintegrate Fati back into the team and may have a perfect opportunity to do so. His side are 12 points clear with 11 games remaining, which should give him ample opportunity to give chances for the club’s prodigal son.
Barcelona fans will hope that his performance against Elche was the start of a return to his early career trajectory and Xavi believes that it can be.
“He regained a lot of confidence in himself, he needed that goal,” Xavi said, when asked about Fati’s performance in the win over Elche. “Strikers live off moments like that. You could see his face was different just after scoring.”
If, after injury heartbreak and struggles with form, Ansu Fati can make good on his early potential, he won’t be the only one in Spain with a smile on his face.