The fashion that most connects Barça players with Barcelona's neighborhoods

Barcelona"The other day a guy went to get braids at my sister's hair salon because he knows she's the one who did them in Raphinha. He was wearing her T-shirt." from Barça. They are in fashion. Like the tapas bar. It goes by seasons. Iñigo Martínez's Mohawk too..." This is Jey Valdez, a hairdresser and barber from Barcelona who serves his clients in the striking premises he has in the Sant Martí neighbourhood, a couple of minutes' walk from Plaza de los Porxos, where a small Alejandro Balde started kicking a ball when he was leaving school. Very close by, next to the La Pau metro stop, Valdez opened his first barbershop in 2017. One of his clients was Balde, who was just a child and lived there with his family, who ran a call center.

Valdez, who is 32 years old and who is dedicated to this trade due to the influence of his parents, could be exclusively a hairdresser of celebrities and, although he often travels to homes or the Barça Sports City to work, he continues to serve almost daily at his establishment in Sant Martí, where they display the shirts of several players who have given him confidence: Balde, Ansu, Araujo (whom he dyes), Nico Williams, Ilaix Moriba (who was also one of his first clients) and. Kounde has also passed through the hands of one of his colleagues, César. And not only footballers, Valdez has cut the hair of the well-known streamer Ibai Llanos.

Born in the Dominican Republic, Valdez started out cutting friends' hair at his home until, after finishing high school, he began to dedicate himself to it. He forged a bond of trust with Balde, who recommended him to other soccer players. He likes having his barbershop in the humble neighborhood where he grew up. When a soccer player goes to get a haircut, he tries to do it around midday. Ansu came once in the afternoon, and a stream of teenagers showed up at the barbershop door. Many neighborhood kids are his clients: "It's a great motivation that the neighborhood parents want to bring their kids here," he says sincerely.

Héctor Fort, a phenomenon among teenagers

Bárbaro González also enjoys working in his neighborhood, Les Corts. He's Cuban and has been living in Barcelona for three years. He professes to be a fan of "pan con tomate." His passion for hairdressing began as a teenager. What he didn't know was how his life would change after treating a Barça soccer player, when he wasn't even a fan of the sport: "Following soccer isn't common in Cuba. Plus, I had very little internet access there."

Cristina, Hector Fort's mother, who works and lives in the neighborhood, He was the one who first took his son to Joan Güell's Barber Shop by Solina, where Bárbaro works. It was the player himself, who had yet to make his debut at the time, who told him where he played. They forged a friendship, and Bárbaro has become a football fan thanks to the young Barça full-back, a player who is causing a stir on social media like TikTok and Instagram.

"At first, it was a big change, from barely being able to access the internet in my country to seeing how videos of me cutting Héctor's hair had hundreds of thousands of views," he explains. "I'm very grateful to him, and he's an example for the kids in the neighborhood of how his hard work has helped him reach Barça," says Bárbaro, the man in charge of styling typical hairstyles. tapas bar –cut gradually shorter as it reaches the neck– to the soccer player and is very fashionable among young people.

Tutorials are spreading like wildfire on the networks

Haircut videos on social media are also an inspiration for other young barbers, like Pau Revelles, 21, who runs the SKY Salon barbershop in Sant Joan Despí, near the Ciutat Esportiva. "I got into hairdressing when I was 15, watching videos," he explains. He's from Cornellà, but thought it best to open his barbershop in Sant Joan Despí, where he's been serving Barça youth players practically since the first day it opened, almost two years ago.

Among his best-known clients are Pau Cubarsí and Marc Bernal, both trained at La Masia. Guille Fernández, a Barça reserve team player whom Revelles already knew, was responsible for spreading the word. "Working with footballers gives me the opportunity to be close to Barça, which is a passion of mine. It's very gratifying to feel that, in some way, I'm helping them, whether before a match or an important event. It also gives you a lot of visibility, and that's a reward for your work," says Revelles. The haircut that had the greatest impact was the one he gave at Cubarsí before the Golden Boy gala and after thrashing Real Madrid.

Iñigo Martínez's Mohawk, a trend

It's not just the hairstyles of younger footballers that are causing a stir on social media: Iñigo Martínez, a veteran, is setting the trend with his Mohawk. His haircut is by César Llamuca, born in Ecuador 30 years ago and raised in Nou Barris since he was four. He's been a hairdresser for ten years and is part of the Ceache barbershop chain. With more than 150,000 followers on Instagram, he's already a well-known face in the industry.

His partner, tattoo artist Alexink, tattooed many La Liga players, and thanks to him and social media—he spends time recording and editing videos almost every day—he began treating famous footballers. That's how he met Iñigo. "I cut his hair when it suits him. He likes to come before Champions League matches, but afterward, he can go a month without a cut, and I see him playing with long hair. He's a family man and likes to have his moments of escape and come to the barbers. He doesn't make me go to his house. He arrives like anyone else and comes to the place where I am, be it Nou Barris, Badalona, or Plaça Espanya."

Working with one of Barça's starting centre-backs has been a real boost for him: "People ask me for his hairstyle. The classic Mohawk has now become known as Iñigo Martínez. Almost half of the services I do today are for this hairstyle! I've convinced Joan Garcia [the Espanyol goalkeeper] to get it done, for example." Llamuca has also worked with Casadó. "I try to work with young people who I know have a lot of potential. Because I believe that barbering can help you escape marginalization, to have a reason to get up in the morning if you don't have a clear direction in life," he explains.

For Llamuca, being a barber is also a way of traveling. A good example is the renowned hairdressers Saúl Peregrina (Sa-B, or Riduan Liindo), who accompanies footballers such as Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams to training camps with the Spanish national team. Footballers are the first to boast.