Barcelona have always been proud of their one-of-a-kind style of play.
It doesn’t take long to recognise that all of their players follow specific patterns or that they must be of a particular player profile before joining the club, even as youngsters.
This is true for all squad roles: the midfielders, defenders, forwards, and, believe it or not, goalkeepers.
Especially the goalkeepers.
“In my teams, the goalie is the first attacker, and the striker is the first defender.”
As the late Johan Cruyff used to say, Barcelona are still respecting his blueprints.
As a result, every goalkeeper who wears the Blaugrana jersey has to be good with his feet and hands if he wants to succeed in the Catalan capital.
Inaki Pena is a young prospect from the famous La Masia academy.
His skill set is exactly what Barcelona is looking for in a keeper.
This tactical analysis will use statistics and examples to determine whether Pena truly has the potential to make the big step up to the senior team eventually.
Iñaki Peña Player Overview
Football started for this 19-year-old goalkeeper when he was only five, when he signed up for Alicante CF.
Some years later, after flourishing in the ranks of the Yellow Submarine, Barcelona bought him from Villarreal, and he arrived in Catalunya in 2012.
His first appearances were for the U-14 team, and the tall guy between the sticks was crucial as the team clinched the league title, and for Pena, his first Blaugrana trophy for the cabinet.
Today, he is a Barcelona B player.
He made the first big step up in his Barcelona career and started the 2018/19 campaign under Francisco Javier Garcia Pimienta.
His agility, composure and dominance in the air are what make him a standout player in his position.
But still, besides his great reflexes and incredible tendency to deny the opposition from the spot, Barcelona values his footwork the most.
Inaki Pena is a young and already quite complete sweeper-keeper who is slowly but surely climbing the ladder.
Style of play
Generally, when talking about goalies of all kinds in world football, we usually put them into two rough categories: a standard goalkeeper, who is more defensive-minded and prone to risk-free options when passing the ball or looking to kick it long.
On the other hand, the sweeper-keeper tends to rush out, play higher up the pitch and play a bigger role in the build-up of the attack itself.
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