"With all due respect, Ignasi, this will be the last time Barça calls you"

TorellóJust two years ago he was earning about a hundred euros playing for Vic in the Elite League, the sixth state category, while studying Sports Science and working as a lunchroom monitor. And last weekend he starred in a dream debut for Barça's reserve team with four goals. It is the extraordinary and dazzling story of Ignasi Quer (Gurb, 2004), a football journeyman who has been grinding away in silence until he found himself facing the opportunity of a lifetime. On Sunday he went viral for his four-goal haul against Náxara and for maintaining Catalan in the mixed zone during questions in Spanish.

The journey began at his hometown club, Gurb. "I remember the exact turn on the way from home to the football pitch where mom told him they had signed him up. We were going in the car we had back then, a black Opel Meriva. He started to cry," explains Pius Quer (2002), his brother. The passion for football was so shared and above all so obsessive that they even took the ball to a funeral. They don't remember the name of the deceased, but they do remember the scolding from their mother, Judith. Their father, Lluís, promised them one hundred euros for every hat trick. He has already given him Sunday's ones.

They were given a trampoline and they also turned it into a football pitch, with a goal at each end. They never had a console. They were given a Barça shirt signed by Leo Messi and they wore it until it faded, instead of keeping it like a treasure in a display case: "You can't see the signature anymore, just a bit of ink." "Ignasi is a footballer, more than a football fan. Until four days ago he didn't watch football," continues the older brother.

At Gurb, they remember he scored 120 or 130 goals as a youth player. "I thought: 'My God, what do we have here?' It was exaggerated. For the goal and for that desire to always fight. At seven or eight years old he was already like that. He is a kid who has been fighting for this his whole life," highlights Jordi Arumí (Calldetenes, 1991). He was his first coach and today he is a friend and advisor. "If he could score six goals, he wouldn't score five. There is one day we often remember: we were losing against Roda and he got a yellow card. He got angry and I think he scored five goals in four minutes, more than one goal per minute. We even printed out the match report."

A 'senior' signing for the reserve team

Afterwards, he played for Vic Riuprimer, Manresa, Manlleu, the Girona youth team, and finally, he returned home with Vic. There, they reunited with Pius in the Elite League. In 2024, they experienced the most beautiful night of their lives with a Copa del Rey match against Atlético de Madrid. Between the two of them, they bought 37 tickets. When Atlético's ball came out in the draw, Ignasi was working as a monitor in the dining hall. He hugged the third and fourth-grade students. Before lunch, they played soccer in the playground, and he would sit at the table like just another kid, sweaty and with a red face.

In the 2024-2025 season, he scored 16 goals and Vic was promoted to the Third Division. Pius continues: "We went together to renew. He wanted to earn x, but Vic couldn't reach that amount. I gave him a part of mine because I have another job, so we could keep playing together. But it didn't last long".

Because last December he made the jump to Hospitalet, owned by Jordi Alba and Thiago Alcántara. They would smile in surprise when they saw a message or a call from Jordi Alba's number: "We found it amusing." He skipped some training sessions to show up for his first-semester CAFE exams. Included in what Hospitalet paid was compensation for losing the second-semester tuition, which had already been paid. He scored 15 goals in half a year and in the summer, a bunch of offers arrived. He had proposals from Sabadell and several Primera Federación clubs, but he chose Barça. It meant giving up one or two categories, but it was playing for Barça, with the doors that can open.

"I told him: 'Ignasi, with all due respect, but it is surely the last time Barça will call you. Every child in the world wants to wear this shirt'. Everyone was telling him: 'Kid, if Barça has called you, pack your bags and go there'. Perhaps everything has aligned so that he can be there now. They didn't get promoted and they needed someone like him: the Segunda RFEF is a very tough league and he is the clear example of a player who loves this 'muddy' football", emphasizes Pius.

Ignasi will still take a few subjects at UVic ("If not, my mother will kick him out of the house") and drives down to the sports city every day. "He'll have to rack up the kilometers. Good thing it's electric", says Pius, laughing. His brother has already captivated Juliano Belletti with his combination of gunpowder, power, and stubbornness.

Barça has not signed replacements for Robert Lewandowski and Ferran Torres and who knows if at some point Hansi Flick might open the door to the Camp Nou for him: "Right now he sees no ceiling anywhere. He is not obsessed with playing for the first team because it is a very distant reality that depends on many factors. But here we have the example of Ferran Jutglà. In his case, specific conditions were met, he got lucky, and he had an incredible year. Why not dream?"