With just three matches remaining and the league title already sealed, Xavi Hernandez has the luxury to do whatever he pleases, in terms of team selection.
The Barcelona coach has already given chances to some of the younger players in the team such as Pablo Torre and Lamine Yamal. There could be more as we head towards these final few games.
According to Diario SPORT, another young player who could be in contention to feature in the upcoming games is Inaki Pena, but not for the reason one would expect.
The report points out that Xavi may hand Pena the opportunity to start in goal in the last few matches so that Marc-Andre ter Stegen can easily win the prestigious Zamora trophy at the end of the season.
The Zamora trophy was introduced by MARCA in 1958, awarding goalkeepers with the best goals-to-games ratio at the end of a campaign. Ter Stegen is leading the charts by a comfortable margin, but his tally has risen to 0.42 after conceding four goals in the last two matches.
Barcelona may fear ter Stegen’s tally could drop further, especially with Xavi likely to field a host of fringe players in the final few matches of the season. Therefore, Pena might be given a few chances, so that ter Stegen can easily win the Zamora trophy.
It would also, in a way, reward Pena with opportunities for his training and hard work. The young goalkeeper, after all, has been quite patient and had remained committed to Barcelona despite not receiving regular opportunities.
However, it must be mentioned that ter Stegen is close to breaking Francisco Liano’s record of 26 clean sheets in a single season. With three matches left to be played, ter Stegen can match Liano’s record with one more clean sheet.
The German can break the record if he gets two more clean sheets in these final three matches. So it will be interesting to see who starts in goal when Barcelona take on Real Valladolid this midweek.