Where are they now? The 5 Barca kids Ernesto Valverde tipped for stardom in 2019
During his final season in charge of Barcelona, former boss Ernesto Valverde tipped five kids from Barca's famous La Masia academy for future success.
After being criticised for results in the Champions League and his style of football, Valverde pledged to incorporate youth more, selecting five promising talents for increased consideration. SPORT journalist Jordi Gil revealed the five La Masia starlets that Valverde identified as having the potential to make it at Barcelona.
We've taken a look at how they've fared in the four years since then.
Compared to Andres Iniesta when he broke through, Puig played for Barca for three seasons as a squad rotation player in midfield before leaving for MLS outfit LA Galaxy at the age of 22.
Playing under a turbulent time at Camp Nou with four different managers, plus the pressure of coming through during a transition phase for the Catalan side, made things hard for Puig.
Still, he lifted a Copa del Rey with the club. Puig played 29 times for the Galaxy in MLS this season and scored a screamer on his debut.
No relation to Sergio, Oriol is actually related to another footballer – Pol – who played in the lower leagues for Llagostera and Cava.
Confusingly he also operates as a defensive midfielder, but ^ Busquets only made two appearances for Barcelona's first team in the Copa del Rey before a loan spell with Twente.
In 2021, Busquets moved to Clermont in Ligue 1 but only made 10 appearances before FC Arouca in Portugal signed him the following season.
Busquets took part in Arocua's Europa Conference League campaign this season but they crashed out to Brann of Norway in the third qualifying round.
Representing Spain just under 80 times at youth level, Miranda had plenty of eyes on him as he made a
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