There are two versions of Xavi Espart‘s afternoon at the Ciutat de València, and Barça fans will be replaying both for a while. In the first, a 19-year-old from Vilassar de Mar opened the scoring in the fifth minute and beat a benchmark set by Philipp Lahm. In the second, he gifted Levante the goal that turned a procession into a nervous evening. Hansi Flick, tellingly, took the blame for the bad one himself.
Xavi Espart reaches his first goal faster than Lahm
The opening goal was the product of the most one-sided four minutes Barça have played all season. As Mundo Deportivo logged it, the Blaugrana had strung together 79 passes — every outfield player touching the ball — while Levante managed three clearances, all of which came straight back. At four minutes and seven seconds, Rodri drove forward, the move ran through Raphinha and Fermín López, and the captain rolled it back for Espart on the edge of the box. He side-footed it gently off the base of the post and went to kiss the badge.
It was his first goal for the first team, in his 11th official appearance. Lahm — the player Flick keeps reaching for whenever he is asked about Espart — did not score for Bayern Munich until his 26th. The comparison is the head coach’s own invention, and his full-back has now taken a shortcut through it.
Flick: "He is playing at a great level"
Flick has been the driving force behind Espart’s rise, and he was expansive about him afterwards. "At the moment he is doing well," the German said. "Technically he is good, tactically as well. And physically he is 100% ready and he is proving it. He is playing at a great level."
The numbers back the faith. Espart, wearing No.12, was making his fourth league start of five matchdays, and he is being used less as an orthodox left-back than as a fifth midfielder inside the pitch. That has left João Cancelo behind him in the pecking order and Alejandro Balde still waiting for his first minutes of the season — a remarkable state of affairs for a player who was a starter in a Liga-winning side. Espart joined Barça at eight years old from UE Vilassar de Mar, and the club has already moved to tie him down on a new deal.
The other half of the lesson
Then came the moment he will want back. Leading 3-0, Espart played a loose pass back towards his own goal and Iván Romero accepted it for 1-3. Roger Brugué made it 2-3 not long after, and only Karim Adeyemi’s stoppage-time solo goal restored order in Barça’s 2-4 win.
Flick refused to let it land on the teenager. "I think the goals we conceded came from mistakes we made, but for the first goal, I think the mistake was mine," he said, per Barca Blaugranes. "We wanted to substitute Xavi because he was having some cramps, and I said: ‘Okay, let’s wait until the next stoppage.’ Maybe if we had changed him at that moment, we would not have conceded that goal."
That is a coach protecting an asset, but it is also a fair reading: a player who had run himself into cramp after 79-pass rondos and constant inside-out movement was always going to make a tired decision eventually.
A La Masia story worth watching
Barça’s 1×1 in Mundo Deportivo nicknamed him the abrelatas — the tin-opener — for both interventions, and added the obvious coaching note: clearing the ball is not forbidden. It is the sort of line that will follow Espart around for a week and be forgotten by Christmas if he keeps playing like this.
What matters more is the trajectory. Five games into the season, Flick has a homegrown left-back who is quicker to his first goal than Lahm was, trusted ahead of two established internationals, and already carrying the physical load of a first-choice starter. Racing de Santander visit the Spotify Camp Nou on Wednesday. On current form, Espart starts.
