More than a pivot: Barcelona should change how they see Marc Bernal | OneFootball

For the outside world, Marc Bernal’s recent goals have come as a pleasant surprise. For FC Barcelona, though, this should feel more like a rediscovery.

Bernal has been widely framed as the next Sergio Busquets emerging out of La Masia: a pivot who is tactically disciplined, positionally astute and secure in circulation.

However, ever since his academy days, he has always been more than that. For all his positional brilliance and defensive awareness, scoring goals has always been a part of his identity.

And this is important because Barcelona are left with an important question.

It is not about whether Bernal can score goals because it has already been established that he can do that. The real question is whether or not they are profiling him correctly.

The numbers were there long before the headlines

At a club like Barca, it is often easy to be romantic and try and draw parallels between the present and the glorious past.

A tall, lanky, long-limbed Spanish midfielder coming through La Masia warrants comparison to only one player from the past, Busquets.

However, if you dig into the fine print, it tells you a story. Bernal scored an astonishing 280 goals in 286 games across his years in La Masia.

Bernal is more than just a pivot. (Photo by Alex Caparros/Getty Images)

In the U-8 team, he scored 58 goals in 28 matches, 50 in 29 for Benjamin C, and 39 in 35 for Benjamin A. Those are not figures you brush aside as a quirky footnote.

Ever since his young years, he has had the instinct.

As Bernal moved up the ladder, of course, the context changed. The spaces grew smaller, the game grew stricter, and his responsibilities deepened.

He operated as a box-to-box midfielder in latter years, but the goals continued to flow.

11 goals in 28 Cadete B appearances and 12 in 28 for Cadete A may make it look like the raw volume dropped, as it naturally would, but the connection to goals never truly disappeared. It simply became more selective and more tactical.

This is the lens Barcelona should be using now. The 18-year-old isn’t suddenly learning how to attack the box. He is just translating a language he has been fluent in all along to a bigger stage.

Recent strikes have caught everyone’s attention

Bernal scored in Barcelona’s 3-0 win over Levante and also against Mallorca.

He then hit a brace against Atletico Madrid in the Copa del Rey semi-final second leg, turning an almost impossible comeback into something plausible for a fleeting moment.

At that point, he had scored 4 goals in 6 games for the Catalan club and took 5 shots against Atletico, 4 of which ended up on target.

It was this sequence of games that changed the public perception of him. Fans no longer see Bernal as a composed deep-lying midfielder who keeps things calm in possession. They see him appearing in decisive spaces and finishing moves.

It is not just about that he scores but also about how he scores.

Bernal has been sensational in front of the goal. (Photo by Judit Cartiel/Getty Images)

There seems to be no sense of panic in his finishing. His actions don’t look coincidental; it looks like he has it mapped in his head a good few minutes before he pulls it off.

He exhibits composure in his finishes, which is seen both in his debut goal and the goals against Atletico Madrid. It feels like many of these finishes come from muscle memory, more than anything else.

Which brings us back, rather conveniently, to his academy numbers. It helped him build habits, timing and confidence in front of goal that are now visible at the biggest of stages.

The pause that makes the story more emotional

When Bernal suffered an ACL rupture and meniscus injury after only three senior league appearances last season, his rapid breakthrough into the first team was brought to a cruel halt.

Widely touted as the next big thing out of La Masia, instead of establishing himself in the first team, Bernal was forced into rehabilitation and recovery for the entirety of the next year.

That is why this current run of games from Bernal hits a more emotional note than it normally would. It almost feels like a restart of the story that paused against Vallecano last season.

Every goal feels slightly larger than the number beside it. It feels like continuity restored. Like a footballer reconnecting with the version of himself that was paused before it could fully emerge.

The profiling is the real challenge

For years, the Catalan club made this mistake with Frenkie de Jong, failing to profile him correctly. They need to learn from their mistakes and not repeat the same with Bernal.

Marc Bernal has just started. (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)

This is where the development matters. Bernal is at a stage of his career where he is still like water. He can take the shape of the container he is stored in.

What this means is that Barcelona do not need to choose one label for the Spaniard immediately and confine him to it.

Let him learn the discipline of a #6. Let him absorb the rhythm, the scanning and the defensive spacing.

However, it’s important not to coach the spontaneity in the game out of him. Restricting him to stick to a particular position on the pitch would make him forget his attacking memory and that is not the ideal way to go about his development.

Gone are the days when a pivot is just expected to be there, to stop opposition attacks.

Modern defensive midfielders like Rodri and Declan Rice are often seen stepping forward and taking shots on goal and it looks like Bernal is also cut from the same cloth.

And this is why the recent goals matter. Barcelona have not discovered a pivot who can chip in with goals, but it looks like they have uncovered a far more expensive midfielder who can define the position at the club for the next decade to come.

The next time Bernal scores a goal, it should not be treated like a plot twist. It should be recognised as a facet of his game.

It should be nurtured, welcomed and with the right sort of development, Barcelona could see a lot more decisive goals from the teenage midfield sensation in the seasons to come.