Marc Casado has been tipped to go on and become a “future captain” at Barcelona but in the meantime he’ll have to try and force his way back into the starting XI.
The midfielder enjoyed a great season in 2024-25 but injury, and Frenkie de Jong’s return to fitness and form, saw his role reduced in the final weeks and months.
Former La Masia coach Oscar Lopez is in no doubt that he has what it takes to succeed at Barcelona and also thinks he could take over the armband at some point.
“Marc Casadó is a Barça fan. He is a great fan of the club as it happens with many other players in the academy. The feeling of belonging to a club is fundamental. You can sign good players but when the level is similar stay with the house players because they give you a special extra. With less money, the academy players are delighted and offer you something more on the pitch and off it,” he told Sport.
“Casadó is a perfect example of what we are talking about. In the Juvenil A I saw him worry a lot about defeats that we suffered because he understood that they were not good for the desired promotion to the first team. You always learn from defeats, but I always say that I see Casadó as a future captain of Barça.”
Competition for places is fierce in midfield at Barcelona, with Lopez admitting that Casado needs to show a bit of fight to force his way back into the IX.
“Healthy competitiveness in positions is a very positive thing. De Jong has taken an important step forward in part because of the level offered by Casadó and that made him get his act together,” he added.
“And what this healthy competitiveness ends up producing is that the team improves. If the players understand it well and ‘bite’ to be starters, the team wins. Now it’s Casadó’s turn around. De Jong is in the situation of Casadó from a few months ago and Marc is going to have to grit his teeth.”
Barcelona’s midfield will also be boosted by the return of Marc Bernal at the start of next season. The youngster missed almost the whole campaign with an ACL injury but is expected to return soon.