6 Barcelona Players with Points to Prove in Pre-Season
Barcelona will begin pre-season training with the aim of heading into the 2016-17 season in good form and fitness, ready to defend their domestic trophies and also looking to recapture the UEFA Champions League.
Luis Enrique has been tremendous for the club in his two seasons in charge, managing a talented squad and getting the best out of them while contending with injuries, a transfer ban and having star names who guarantee their place in the lineup—and consequently only being able to offer a spot on the bench for others.
There are several members of the squad who need to have a big impact in pre-season if they are to be called upon with more frequency and trusted in the biggest matches next term, with six identified here as having to prove a point over the coming weeks after less-than-stellar 2015-16 seasons for different reasons.
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Denis Suarez
New signing, re-signing: Denis Suarez spent a couple of years away from Barcelona but is back, confirmed and presented as an option for Enrique once again next season.
The 22-year-old impressed last term at Villarreal, prompting the €3.25 million return to the Camp Nou. For the Yellow Submarine, he played on either side of a four-man midfield, from where he could cut infield and attack opposition defences with his dribbling and incisive passing.
Barcelona, of course, play differently. Denis will be looking for a place in the team either out wide as the backup for either Lionel Messi or Neymar in the three-man front line or else competing with Ivan Rakitic and Andres Iniesta for an offensive central-midfield slot.
Just in case you weren't aware, those four players are pretty good.
Denis needs to hit the ground running to put himself in the frame for any kind of significant game time.
Arda Turan
Those aforementioned starters aren't the only ones Denis will compete with, as Arda Turan will be looking to make good on his ability in the same four roles.
The Turkey international was ineligible for the first half of last season, didn't impress in the second half and then had a dismal Euro 2016 campaign with his national team—all in all, he'll be glad to see the back of 2015-16.
Pressure will be on the 29-year-old to start justifying the big fee Barca paid out (an initial €34 million), and although he seemed a smart signing at the time, he simply hasn't fitted in.
If he falls behind the much younger Denis during pre-season, it really will be all over for his hopes of being a big player at Barca.
Aleix Vidal
Joining at the same time as Turan, and suffering the same struggles, was Aleix Vidal.
His progress to the first XI looks far easier given Dani Alves' departure to Juventus, leaving the right-back berth free, but he'll be up against Sergi Roberto to claim it by right.
Roberto was consistent, aggressive and impressive last term in a variety of roles, while Vidal had perhaps two or three decent games before falling out of favour, getting injured and then remaining unused from the bench.
Even if he fails to make the right-back spot his own at the start of the season, he'll almost certainly see lots of game time during the course of 2016-17 given the position has little depth, but pre-season is the first and perhaps only opportunity he'll be handed to nail down the spot.
Jeremy Mathieu
Marc Bartra is gone, Toni Juanmarti Sport said Thomas Vermaelen may leave and Samuel Umtiti has arrived; centre-back has been a position of change for Barcelona this summer, with Jeremy Mathieu largely forgotten and in danger of being rendered irrelevant.
Umtiti plays on the left side, the same as Mathieu, and replaced his injured compatriot in the France squad for Euro 2016.
Mathieu was impressive and important in his debut campaign at Barca, 2014-15, but he was largely abysmal and inconsistent last term—and will be fourth-choice at best if he doesn't enjoy a near-faultless pre-season.
An ability to play at left-back means he'll probably stay and provide cover, but even his limited game time of last season (1,260 minutes in La Liga compared to 2,106 the previous year, per Transfermarkt) will look like a regular run out compared to 2016-17 if he doesn't find form over summer.
Munir El Haddadi
Barcelona released Sandro Ramirez earlier in the summer after failing to impress when the opportunity was handed to him last season, but Munir El Haddadi will stay.
He needs to do far more, though, if he is to be considered a genuine possibility for the first XI in the coming seasons; the fact Barcelona are likely to sign a centre-forward to provide cover for Luis Suarez, Munir's best role, is proof enough Luis Enrique has yet to be fully convinced by his traits.
Munir has at times provided dangerous runs and penetration from the left but nowhere near consistently enough.
Pre-season, against big teams and before the likes of Messi and Neymar—one played in the Copa America, and the other will be on Olympics duty soon—are fully fit and firing, is his chance to showcase the predatory instincts that made him a Spain international having barely made his Barca first-team debut.
Rafinha
Finally, Rafinha still has much to prove despite clearly having an innate talent.
Had he remained injury free last season, he could comfortably have been Barcelona's 12th man at this point, but a long-term absence and an understandable failure to recapture form and fitness quickly enough toward the end of the campaign has led, in part, to the signing of Denis Suarez.
Rafinha will vie with Turan and Denis for the attacking central roles in midfield, and he can also feature in the front three if needed. But he still seems reasonably distant from making any single position or role his own—other than last-half-hour sub.
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