when a player moves to a club for €60 million and doesn't perform immediately eyebrows reach for the sky why him the player is mocked told to leave and filled with self-doubt that right there describes Rafa at FC Barcelona for the first two years yet somehow he went from that to scoring hattricks against Bayern Munich scoring and assisting versus Real Madrid and becoming maybe the most informed player on the planet before this season people were wearing his current shirt number and Nico Williams's name fast forward to now over 20 goal contributions and Counting less than a
quarter of the way through the season and all those attractors have been pretty quiet [Music] lately hello everyone hope you're well welcome back born in Porto algra Brazil in 1997 it's a wonder he made it this far in a now 3 years old players Tribune post he referenced remembering how it felt to walk the streets after training and ask people if they had any food he could eat covered in mud sweating out of breath he recalls people passing by being afraid of his physical appearance when he would approach them people would drive or walk past
him like he wasn't even there he was a talented footballer and all he wanted to do was join an academy to hopefully get an allowance to help take care of his family but no Academy would take him on and an increasing number of his friends were turning to the drug world to help their families Rafia was close to doing the same instead he persisted and essentially played amateur football known as football deaj directly translated to flood playing football until he was about 18 years old this can be described as a network of matches set up
by local communities that can I guess in a way somewhat be likened to Sunday league if you just want to think Grassroots football but it also wasn't like that at all no contracts no bibs anyone can show up on any day to participate and often those who show up are the ones rejected from account and the conditions of these matches were less than ideal in the same players Tribune post he describes these tournaments as the wild west you play on Clay burning heat dust and sand someone will bring a ball from home these players are
the rejects man they play with anger they play to survive they play like their lives depend on it you would often see the bosses in the community stand around the pitch with guns you could be about to score when a random gunshot would go off but eventually his talents were recognized and he was signed by aai the bull began to roll and pick up more and more momentum as he was then scouted by Deco and joined Victoria gimes in Portugal in 2016 2 years later he transferred to sporting two years after that to Ren another
two years leads and finally two years after that FC Barcelona he is currently in his third season with barer an inspiring story for sure but at this point I think we all have the same question in mind why all the f us what's so good about him speed intensity versatility and dedication I'm not going to sit here and pretend as if Rafia is always been as good as he currently is that just wouldn't be true but no one can deny that he hasn't exhibited all four of those characteristics that I just said throughout his entire
Journey they are what's gotten him to where he's at today while he works on all the other aspects that he's lacking in when Rafia was at leads he built up a reputation of being Lightning Fast able to score a goal and genuinely giving his all for the team in a Marcelo belela Squad renowned for its high Tempo approach though not always successful approach Rafia was maybe the prime example of what it meant to play this way for those reasons he's remembered very fondly in leads I mean it helps that he's pretty much the main reason
that they stayed up in the Premier League in 2022 he scored 11 goals and three assists throughout that campaign contributing to about 33% of the goals that they scored there and when you factor in that they survived by three points after winning on the final day a game that he scored in by the way I'll let you all guess how the people of Leeds really feel about him all the same I'll be completely honest and expose myself here I wasn't entirely convinced that he was a proper big Club player at the time when when he
left leads at least like yeah great player sure but I don't know I thought that he was a bit clumsy at times a bit of a head down and press kind of player he wasn't really quick with his feet and tight spaces and for all the goals that he scored he did miss a lot of opportunities obviously these were just the signs of a player in development my judgment was too narrow I say that because it looked like Arsenal or Chelsea would win his signatur as they were very interested but then Barcelona Came Calling and
we all know what happens in the minds of Any Given Brazilian when Barcelona comes calling fun fact Rafa's father was a sambba musician and performed at one of Ronaldinho's birthday parties when he was still a Barcelona player Rafia was there and even met the man they're now friends oh friend in his first season with Barcelona that was 2022 23 the opinion surrounding Rafia pretty much seemed to mirror the sentiment that I just threw out long story short good but not good enough but it's important that we understand that there were a lot of reasons for
this and most of them weren't actually his fault for starters we have the dumpster fire that is Barcelona's Public Image over the last few years everything from the finances to the allegations of paying referees regardless of whatever the truth is they've taken a PR hit even the best players on the pitch were caught up in the crossfire the second of which is the system that chavy was playing him in 10 goals in all competitions in both of his first two seasons with the club isn't too bad if you ask me especially for a Winger and
most would agree that he was a solid option for being on the end of attacking plays but that's not how chvy wanted to use him Rafia for the most part in his career has played as a right-sided Winger it makes sense because he is a left footed player and he has all the attributes that I just mentioned what Chevy wanted from his wide men was constant width for them to stay very very far out wide to isolate them and give them the maximum amount of space for them to take a defender on 1 V one
and uh go past them to go towards goal or go towards the the line and cut back the only thing is that Rafia for all his great traits he isn't the best dribbler sure he's he's functional but he's not the greatest I wouldn't say that he's good enough for you to rely upon his dribbling as as a main characteristic of your attack and his numbers back this up in 2022 23 in his first season he was in the 50th percentile for successful take on in La Liga per 90 only getting past his man 43% of
the time compare that to a guy like Usman demell who is obviously no saint but who I think nobody can deny is a technical genius when his body allows him to be on the pitch for more than a couple of seconds he was healthy at the start of this video actually but his knee it just could and take the pressure in 2022 23 he was only slightly better at around a 46% success rate but he also tried to go past player significantly more than Rafia and also successfully went past players almost double the amount of
times as Rafia it's just the way he plays and dembele who was also a left footed right winger was pretty much preferred by chavy from the get-go and for good reason too I don't think you'll find many compelling arguments that dembele isn't a objectively better right winger pure right winger than Rafia is when fit ironically from what it seems Rafia was brought in to replace denell as Barcelona were convinced he already had an agreement with another club still chavy had a lot of faith that dembele would come right eventually you know a lot of faith
and what this meant was that Rafia could only start on the right when deell was injured which actually happened to be somewhat regularly even still when rafino was playing on the right he didn't really do enough to impress and when games where he started he almost never did enough for chavy to let him finish the game I counted that he only played a full 907 times in his first two seasons in La Liga 60 million EUR s full 90 minutes almost every time that he started a match he was taken off around the 60th minute
or so for faran Torres demele at times but for the most part last season lein yamal and while chev's decision to prioritize the development of yamal was obviously the correct move for Bosa it left Rafia in a precarious position and that position was being on the left the spot where he didn't really produce what chavy wanted in a recent interview with Alpa he even came right out and spoke about his frustrations and how he was trying too hard with little to show for it this isn't a criticism of chavy subconsciously I already knew that I
was going to have to come off I tried to do everything in 60 minutes and nothing worked out and other times when things did work out for me I I was taken off anyway he'd shown glimpses of what he can do and that he was deserving of love from the Barcelona faithful on a few occasions one of the best examples that comes to mind for me was his performance versus Manchester United in the Europa League knockout round playoffs first leg in 2023 obviously this match comes to mind because I am a manchest United fan I
watch all man united games of course I watched this one he was a massive threat scored the equalizer to make a 22 and was possibly the best player on the pitch however fast forward to the end of 2023 24 and opinions they just hadn't really seemed to change that much since he arrived good but not good enough the 2024 Euro sha a lights on many players one of them was niik Williams his chemistry with yamal was just off the charts and the standard question asked by reporters to either of them was would you like to
play with each other and let me tell you something yamal is not moving to b b so they knew what they were really asking that move didn't happen certain people should be counting Their Blessings because I know the Barcelona fans that wished it did have quietly been wiping their posting history over the past 10 weeks plus even if Williams goes to Barcelona in 5 years time and lamin yamal is still there and plays with him um Williams will be 27 and yamal will be 22 so anyway here's where things get really interesting out when chavy
in came huny flick huny flick a very well-known and renowned manager in Europe did some incredible things with Bayern Munich and was expected to bring that brand of football over with him to Barcelona and he brought it positional Freedom high intensity movement pressing and defensive contributions tactical flexibility hm I wonder who would benefit the most from this type of system right now this man is red hot everything seems to be working 12 goals and 10 assists and 16 games in all competitions as of recording almost four key passes per 9 an XG of 63 goals
per 90 and an actual scoring rate of 64 goals so we know it's not some fluke he's performing as expected and so far he's played a full 90 11 times out of 15 on paper Rafia either started as a left Winger or a central attacking midfielder SL Center forward for most games for boss of this season but it doesn't really matter where his onp paper starting point is because for the most part he's played in both of those positions simultaneous l in every game like I said he's not the best dribbler on the planet he's
functional but not the best and you know the stats actually back it up this season even more so than before because his dribbling stats have plummeted this year he's been in the 25th percentile for take on attempts and the 34th percentile for successful take on meaning he's only attempting about three take on per 90 as as an attacking player but like I said it's not like that matters at all because that hasn't been his Focus area instead this season he's focused fed on athleticism and positioning so he doesn't really need to beat his man with
trickery it also helps that he rarely misc contr controls or loses it 97th percentile and of course that he's pretty much box to box 97th percentile again for touches in his own defensive penalty area and 82nd percentile in the attacking penalty area when the P or play isn't on the cards he puts in a massive effort at the very least to keep the opponent guessing or honest because he knows that when it is on he'll be plus I also have to give him massive credit for the fact that he doesn't hide from anything he makes
a mistake no stress he gets up and wins the ball back that's how he is he's honestly just the best kind of player to have I think in the AL Classico video I released last week I spoke about how amazing of a job he did by drawing players like er milau out of position for Barcelona's first goal it's little movements like that that have become his trademark in the League this year and clearly milau among others are well aware just to round off some of the points that I've been making last week I pointed towards
a lot of his contributing plays and movements and and and really good things that he did uh I want to do the same thing here except with other matches and other examples just to highlight how wonderful he is a great example of the positional fluidity on display inflicts Barcelona and Rafa's willingness to partake Cay in barca's match versus espanol a straight ball over the top by Casado rafino runs straight through levandowski running Channel this time time from the right side gets to the ball first and lobs the keeper he's not being given license to roam
like that and make this kind of movement under chavey going back to the Real Madrid match we see another example of this his only goal was a true showing of pace he burns Lucas Vasquez in a foot race and cuts through the middle coming from the left he does the same for his assist in that game only difference is that he sees yamal and ensures he becomes the youngest scorer in our classical history I think there was a bit of resentment from Rafia towards yamal in those early days most likely just from Rafia side like
I said chavy would hook him out around the 60th minute or so but now they are as in sync as you possibly could be it seems unfair that these guys have a guy like rafino on the left side and a guy like laminal on the right side over and above their attacking contributions you would think that they don't even have a second to rest based on how much they press uh it's something that killing mbappe could learn from but that's a story for another day next we have valed here's his resting position position just before
the move that led to the initial goal standing right on the shadow of the defender levandowski comes towards the ball leaving the center open and Rafia has free gross he chested down like it's nothing gets him behind finishes with a very very cool left stroke his hatrick goal is the same he's now operating as a cam during a fast break and just runs straight through all the way and that's what flick system allows if there's space you can attack it just make sure that you're on the same wavelength as your teammates and you're not getting
bundled up in each other's running lines which I don't think these guys have a problem with so far against V Royale he shown his character and Leadership a goal from the edge of the Box seems somewhat routine but this goal came in a moment when Barcelona looked like they may be about to be exposed and unraveled V Royale had already scored two offside goals and looked like they were mounting a bit of a Revival this goal calmed the nerves Rafia puts his life blood into this game his teammates have always known it even though some
of the fans uh may not choose to see it's one of the reasons why he was given the responsibility of being one of the club's Captain going into this season despite only being a boss player for 2 years and fans constantly calling for him to get sold and our final example comes from the match versus by Munich he was Captain for the night too two times he gets in behind Dio pumo and Kim MJ and both times he burns them he scores both times I still maintain that he's not the best at facing up to
Defenders but he did just that for second goal against Guerrero and upano and finishes through upu mako's legs right now Rafia is finishing games he's lifting his teammates he's running non-stop he's scoring hattricks against Bayern Munich I dreamed about nights like this since the moment I joined this club he said that after the buy and win and from the looks of things the dream is far far from over
