It’s not often that the word ‘star’ is associated with a 20-year-old but many La Masia players are deserving of the lofty tag. One such player is Alejandro Balde who played his first La Liga game after seven months against Valencia last night.
Barcelona fans have sorely missed the electricity that Balde brings on the left flank for quite some time now. One of the stars of our title-winning 2022/23 campaign, the hope is that the 20-year-old can return to the levels he showed back then after his injury.
Against Valencia, Hansi Flick handed Balde a start at left-back after a solid pre-season and the 20-year-old had a good game. He suffered an injury scare in the first half when he was seen holding his hamstring in the aftermath of a challenge. Thankfully, the €40m-rated Spaniard was okay to continue. He even went on to provide the cross to Lamine Yamal that resulted in Barcelona’s first goal at the stroke of half-time.
However, Balde had to be replaced in the second half at around the 64th minute by Gerard Martin when he went down off the ball again, leading to speculations of another injury. It must be noted here that the 20-year-old did manage to pick himself up and walk off on his own during his substitution.
Barcelona fans would have understandably been worried about whether their star left-back had suffered yet another injury but Balde has come out after the game on social media and assured that he is fine, as quoted by SPORT:
“+3. It was just a blow, everything is fine.”
This comes as a major relief to Cules all around the world that Balde is likely to be fine and that it was just a knock. Barcelona doesn’t have a replacement for him in the senior squad with the only options being Gerard Martin and Alex Valle.
In Hansi Flick’s first official game, we saw an intense Barcelona that pressed until the final whistle. The demands of this system are extreme and coming off a major injury like Balde is, he should be eased into the team.
Even if Balde hadn’t taken that knock yesterday, Flick would have likely taken him off at some point. Let’s hope he recovers and is ready to start our next La Liga game against Athletic Bilbao.
