Young star Gavi returns to where it all started as Barca visit Real Betis

MADRID: This Saturday’s La Liga match between FC Barcelona and Real Betis at the Estadi Olímpic will be really special for one player -- Pablo Martín Paez Gavira, the young Barcelona star better known as Gavi.

It will be a trip worth remembering for Gavi, who was in the Real Betis academy just eight years ago.

A regular starter for Barca, Gavi has played 100 times for Barcelona's first team. He has become the youngest player to reach a century of games for Los Blaugrana, achieving this feat at 19 years and 29 days.

He may be young and he may be small, but Gavi is the most recent winner of the Golden Boy and Kopa Trophy awards and he makes up for his lack of experience and lack of size through his innate feel for the beautiful game. That understanding of the sport is partly natural and partly taught.

Those natural skills saw Gavi, born in the province of Seville, join the Real Betis academy and then, at the age of 11, move to Catalonia to enter FC Barcelona’s prestigious La Masia school. There, he often played with footballers older than him and he always held his own, learning how to use his talents most effectively.

That prepared him for his early ascent to senior football -- first competing against full-grown adults when he made his debut for Barcelona B on February 21, 2021, at 16 years and 200 days of age. IANS

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