The victory over Napoli was a great night for Barça, and it was an especially memorable night for Barça B second captain Ramón Rodríguez Jiménez, commonly known as Monchu, who got to make his senior team debut as a replacement for Antoine Griezmann after 84 minutes.
Including the five minutes of stoppage time, he got 11 on the pitch, touching the ball nine times with 3/4 pass rate. Wearing 42 on his back, he brought some consistency to the midfield at a time when Barça needed to keep things stable and make sure they held onto their lead.
He’s been having a cracking season in the reserves, for which he was the top goalscorer with 10 goals in 29 games. Not bad for a midfielder! The Balearic Islander, who also gave three assists, is a dead ball specialist, and that’s where most of his goals have come from.
Third debutant
Monchu follows on from Ansu Fati (v Betis) and Ronald Araujo (v Sevilla) as the third Barça B player to make his first competitive appearance for the first team. Carles Pérez (now at Roma), Riqui Puig and Alex Collado have all made contributions too, but had made their debuts the season before.
