The Day Everything Changed: A Star Is Born at Barcelona

There are days in football that define a player's professional career and the peak of their abilities — days when a young talent steps out of obscurity.

According to "Verzeh Se", the days when that player announces to the world, he should be taken seriously and his progress should be followed carefully. In the case of Pau Cobarsi, that day was undoubtedly March 12, 2024. The Catalan defender experienced his first continental game when he was only 17 years old, in the second leg of the round of 18 of the European Champions League against Napoli.

After years of failure in Europe without reaching the quarter-finals of the continent's most prestigious tournament, Barcelona was only one game away from advancing to the next stage. The first leg at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium ended in a 1-1 draw, in which Robert Lewandowski scored for the Blues and Victor Osiman scored for the Italians; An attacker who had greatly troubled the Barça defense and especially Inigo Martinez.

For the second leg, Xavi Hernandez took a big gamble and put the experienced Basque defender on the bench to assign the 17-year-old Kobarsi to stop the Napoli star. This decision was considered a big risk, because despite Kobarsi's good performances in La Liga, their Champions League test against a striker like Osiman was a difficult challenge.

But the result went beyond expectations. Kobarsi made a stunning save on the Nigerian striker and won the man of the match award in his first game in the Champions League. Kobarsi was perfect in sending passes and out of 67 passes, only 4 of them did not reach their destination. He became the team's best player in this division with 94% pass accuracy and kept his composure even under intense pressure from Napoli's attack. The defender completed his performance with 80 touches of the ball, which ranked third in the team behind Ilkay Gundogan with 89 and Joao Cancelo with 82. He created a scoring opportunity with a deep pass for Fermin López and besides the difficult battle with Osiman, he won all three of his aerial battles, all three of his tackles were successful and he stole the ball five times; A statistic that was rare for a 17-year-old defender.

After the match, the young defender said: "It was one of the best days of my life. The award for the best player on the field is deserved by the whole team. I like to play calmly. "In duels, I always try to show up with 200% power."

Hansi Flick decided to rest Kobarsi against Getafe after a Fifa campaign in which he played three full matches for the Spanish national team. Now this defender will undoubtedly go to the field from the beginning and will line up again against Osiman; The striker who played for his team after recovering from muscle pains on Friday. A meeting that will repeat the fateful duel.