Barcelona midfield wonderkid’s prolific goalscoring record in youth football | OneFootball

Marc Bernal netted his second goal in La Liga last evening when Barcelona took on Levante at the Spotify Camp Nou, making it two goals in just his last three appearances for the club.

The youngster, starring as a defensive midfielder, is not one somebody would usually associate with goals, and his flurry of two goals may come as a surprise.

As relayed by SPORT, however, Bernal has always had a phenomenal goalscoring record over the years at La Masia, and his ability to strike the ball is grossly underestimated.

Outrageous numbers

Bernal has been with Barcelona’s academy right from the Prebenjamin stage, i.e. the under 7-under 8 stage of his career. Right from then, he has been one of the team’s top goalscorers.

He arrived in Catalonia as the top scorer of his former team, Gimnastic de Manresa, for their Prebenjamin side, and continued his form for Barcelona’s corresponding category with 58 goals in 28 appearances.

He eventually finished his time in the Benjamin category with 89 goals and then moved to the Alevin category (under-12), where he racked up 96 goals, averaging 1.61 goals per game.

Shockingly, he was indeed still a midfielder or even a left-back during his time in those brackets.

Bernal has now scored two senior goals for Barcelona. (Photo by Judit Cartiel/Getty Images)

It was between the 2019-20 and 20-21 seasons that he made the jump to the Infantil category, shifting from seven-a-side football to eleven-a-side football. The period, however, coincided with the pandemic and saw his rhythm hurt.

He recorded four goals in 16 starts with the Infantil B and then went on to score seven goals in 13 games with the Infantil A level. 

Moving to Cadete B, Bernal continued his good goalscoring record with eleven goals in 28 appearances and then scored twelve in as many appearances with the Cadete A level. While still a midfielder, he played a more box-to-box role in these years.

Bernal played just five games with the Juvenil B team after stepping up from Cadete and was immediately integrated into the Barça Atletic setup, where he scored two goals in 35 appearances. Now, he already has two goals at the pinnacle level of the sport this season.

All in all, Bernal has scored a flabbergasting 280 goals in 286 appearances for Barcelona over the years, and it is astounding how good a finisher he can be.

The next time Bernal scores, it would indeed be better advised to treat it as a normalcy than as an anomaly.