Pau Cubarsí will not forget 12 March 2024 in a hurry. At the age of 17 years, 1 month and 20 days he became the youngest defender ever to represent Barça in the Champions League, surpasses his similarly youthful team-mate Héctor Fort who was 17 years and 133 days old when he faced Antwerp earlier in this very edition. To celebrate, the teenager put in a man of the match performance to help the blaugranes into the last eight of this season’s competition.
The rise of Pau Cubarsí
It is only two months since Pau Cubarsí played his first ever competitive fixture for Barça, and although Xavi Hernández possibly only drew on the youngster’s services as an emergency measure to cover for injuries, he has impressed so much that he become an increasingly more regular feature in his defensive plans.
Against Napoli the young defender gave a virtuoso performance, making more passes and more completed passes than any other player in the Barça side. Truly, a man of the match display.
Youth League, U17 World Cup and now the Champions League
In less than a year Cubarsí has appeared in three international and continental competitions having played three games in the UEFA Youth League, two this very season, and he was also part of the Spain U17 team at the European Championship and World Cup, starting every game apart from one against Uzbekistan in the group stage of the latter when he was rested after his team had already secured passage to the knockout stage.
