Liverpool have taken former Barcelona youngster Juanma on trial.
The teenager, full name Juan Manuel Garcia, started at left-back for the Reds Under-21s against Welsh side Rhyl, report the Liverpool Echo.
And it was an impressive debut with the 19-year-old sending in a perfect cross for Brooks Lennon’s goal as the Reds ran out ready 4-1 winners.
Liverpool U21/U23s manager Michael Beale said after the game that the player was someone he was keen to have a look at.
Beale said: “Juanma is a boy who’s come in to spend the week with us with a view to maybe seeing more of him.
"He’s only had a couple of days training with us, speaks very little English but you can see a very good player. He had a fantastic assist for Brooks Lennon.
“He was at Barcelona so we’ll have a look and see how we go with him. He played with (fellow Academy players) Madger Gomes and Pedro Chirivella with Spain so we’re quite familiar with him.
“He’s very versatile and can play in different positions because technically he’s very good.
“I quite like him, he reminds he a little bit of someone like a Pablo Zabaleta-type player, a nice player.”
Juanma played as a centre back and a left back during his time at Barcelona where he progressed through from the cadet team to Barcelona’s Youth B team and to the A team where he made 17 appearances in the UEFA Youth League, including six as captain.
It is not the first time Liverpool have moved to take a player with experience of Barcelona’s La Masia academy.
In 2013, the Academy picked up Sergi Canos from the same place and after a couple of years at the Academy and an impressive loan spell at Brentford last season, he moved to Norwich earlier this month for a fee of £2.5m rising to £4.5m.
Another youngster in the Academy after leaving Barcelona is Bobby Adekanye, a flying 17-year-old winger whose first season was dogged by injury but who remains full of potential.
Speaking of Canos’ departure, Beale said: “A fantastic move for Sergi Canos and we wish him well going on with his career now with Norwich. Sergi’s a fantastic kid, had a good year last year at Brentford and it’s a good move for him.
"Norwich are a big club, one of the favourites for the Championship this year and it just shows that if the boys don’t progress through to our first team and do well we are now churning out players that will play at a high level.
“The Academy can’t just be taking all the time, can it? The investment in the players and staff is a big investment for any club.
"It’s important that over time if the work’s been good, you’ve got a manager that will trust the players and secondly that those players have got a value.
“That’s what we’re started to see more and more of now.
"There’s probably 10 or 12 players that people are really aware of and excited about that will either make their way into our first team under Jurgen (Klopp) or will have top careers.
“That’s what we want our Academy to be known for, we don’t want to be selling a dream for a boy when he comes in at nine and at 17 he’s off finding a day job for himself.”
Another new face in the Rhyl game was Nathan Phillips, a centre back who played in the second half alongside Llloyd Jones.
Beale said: “Nathan is another guy we’re looking at from outside as well. Our numbers are quite low at the moment with boys who came back yesterday with the youth team.
"We picked up one or two injuries in our game in midweek (on tour in Germany) with Madger Gomes, Jake Brimmer and Paolo Alves.
“So we’ve supplemented it with a couple of players we’d like to have a look at. They’re triallists at the minute but we’ll see.
"There’s a couple more games this week, we go to Celtic on Wednesday, Morecambe’s first team on Saturday and we play MK Dons on Monday.”
The teenager, full name Juan Manuel Garcia, started at left-back for the Reds Under-21s against Welsh side Rhyl, report the Liverpool Echo.
And it was an impressive debut with the 19-year-old sending in a perfect cross for Brooks Lennon’s goal as the Reds ran out ready 4-1 winners.
Liverpool U21/U23s manager Michael Beale said after the game that the player was someone he was keen to have a look at.
Beale said: “Juanma is a boy who’s come in to spend the week with us with a view to maybe seeing more of him.
"He’s only had a couple of days training with us, speaks very little English but you can see a very good player. He had a fantastic assist for Brooks Lennon.
“He was at Barcelona so we’ll have a look and see how we go with him. He played with (fellow Academy players) Madger Gomes and Pedro Chirivella with Spain so we’re quite familiar with him.
“He’s very versatile and can play in different positions because technically he’s very good.
“I quite like him, he reminds he a little bit of someone like a Pablo Zabaleta-type player, a nice player.”
Juanma played as a centre back and a left back during his time at Barcelona where he progressed through from the cadet team to Barcelona’s Youth B team and to the A team where he made 17 appearances in the UEFA Youth League, including six as captain.
It is not the first time Liverpool have moved to take a player with experience of Barcelona’s La Masia academy.
In 2013, the Academy picked up Sergi Canos from the same place and after a couple of years at the Academy and an impressive loan spell at Brentford last season, he moved to Norwich earlier this month for a fee of £2.5m rising to £4.5m.
Another youngster in the Academy after leaving Barcelona is Bobby Adekanye, a flying 17-year-old winger whose first season was dogged by injury but who remains full of potential.
Speaking of Canos’ departure, Beale said: “A fantastic move for Sergi Canos and we wish him well going on with his career now with Norwich. Sergi’s a fantastic kid, had a good year last year at Brentford and it’s a good move for him.
"Norwich are a big club, one of the favourites for the Championship this year and it just shows that if the boys don’t progress through to our first team and do well we are now churning out players that will play at a high level.
“The Academy can’t just be taking all the time, can it? The investment in the players and staff is a big investment for any club.
"It’s important that over time if the work’s been good, you’ve got a manager that will trust the players and secondly that those players have got a value.
“That’s what we’re started to see more and more of now.
"There’s probably 10 or 12 players that people are really aware of and excited about that will either make their way into our first team under Jurgen (Klopp) or will have top careers.
“That’s what we want our Academy to be known for, we don’t want to be selling a dream for a boy when he comes in at nine and at 17 he’s off finding a day job for himself.”
Another new face in the Rhyl game was Nathan Phillips, a centre back who played in the second half alongside Llloyd Jones.
Beale said: “Nathan is another guy we’re looking at from outside as well. Our numbers are quite low at the moment with boys who came back yesterday with the youth team.
"We picked up one or two injuries in our game in midweek (on tour in Germany) with Madger Gomes, Jake Brimmer and Paolo Alves.
“So we’ve supplemented it with a couple of players we’d like to have a look at. They’re triallists at the minute but we’ll see.
"There’s a couple more games this week, we go to Celtic on Wednesday, Morecambe’s first team on Saturday and we play MK Dons on Monday.”
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