Guardiola Looks To Youth To Fill Holes On Defense

Pep Guardiola made his first move to replace French international Éric Abidal as he called up Barca B standout Andreu Fontàs.   The Barcelona youth product has seen some playing time in some big stages so far this season when called up to play for the first team and so far has responded quite well. 

In his three appearances with Barca, he has done his job quite well.  So well in fact that he got the nod in the Champions League match against Rubin Kazan; a match the Blaugrana won 2-0 with a goal by the young man from Banyoles.

Another youth product that will be counted on by the Barcelona coaching staff is that Martín Montoya.  The 19-year-old leads all defenders in matches played  (27) on the reserve team.  Montoya recently saw action at Mallorca with the big team as he came stepped onto the pitch in the 85th for Adriano in Barca’s 3-0 on the island.  During his time on the second team, he became the undisputed right back for Luis Enrique. 

Barcelona will most likely see a backline with both Piqué and Fontàs in the middle.  There could also be a possibility for his Sergio Busquets to drop back as he has in recent weeks due to the absence of Carles Puyol.     

The luxury of Busquets on defense can be attributed to the emergence of Javier Mascherano and the dependability of Seydou Keita in the past few weeks.

There is still quite a possibility that one of the these two end up playing against Getafe depending on how the five players that suffered knocks against Sevilla evolve in their respective injuries.   The cards favor Fontàs because both Dani Alves as well as Adriano trained on Wednesday.  Meanwhile Maxwell was already discarded for the weekend due to muscular fatigue.