Barcelona goalkeeper Inaki Pena almost left the Catalan giants of Manchester United in his youth, have revealed this week the ex-coaches of La Masia del player.
Pena joined the ranks of the Barcelona Academy from Villarreal when he was 13 years old and has been a first team player for just over two seasons. The race is being extended due to Marc-Andre ter Stegen’s injury, and for now, it is defending against the competition of Wojciech Szczesny.
But things were almost as different and his career almost took an alternate path.
When Pena was 15, he was offered the opportunity to join Manchester United and he was going to take it until the incoming heads of La Masia, Jordi Roura and Aureli Altimira, convinced him to leave.
“We were in a mess because he had agreed to go to Manchester United. He had traveled and everything. He had done it,” the couple revealed to Sports World.
“But we talked to him, we presented him with our future plan, what we expected from him. To our surprise, we convinced him and he decided to stay. A spectacular kid, a top professional. We are glad he got the chance and that he’s responding the way he’s doing.”
Despite Barcelona’s long-standing reputation for producing professional players, Pena would not have been the first to leave La Masia before graduating. Gerard Piqué joined Manchester United in 2004 when he was just 17, while Cesc Fabregas moved to Arsenal at 16 the year before.
More recently, Andre Onana spent five years at La Masia, before moving to Ajax at the age of 19. Hector Bellerin was a similar story to Fabregas, moving to Arsenal when he was 16.
Onana is now at Manchester and is only the club’s third starting goalkeeper in the last 19 years following long spells by Edwin van der Sar (2005-2011) and David de Gea (2011-2023).
