Xavi Hernández's best favor to Hansi Flick

Few footballers at Barça have a recent history as unique as Fermín López's. Perhaps the closest is Gerard Martín, who went from Cornellà to playing in a Champions League semi-final under Hansi Flick. In the case of the Andalusian attacking midfielder, the credit must be given, aside from the player himself and former youth academy director Jordi Roura, to Xavi Hernández. The former Barça coach was the one who placed the most faith in Fermín when he was practically out of the club – he went on loan to Linares – without even having made his debut with the first team. "Xavi is his mentor and, with Flick, little by little, he ended up earning a place," Roura said. He praised the footballer's father in a conversation with ARA"We are very grateful to all the Barça fans and all Catalans for how much they love him," he added.

Through hard work and magnificent performances, Fermín has become one of the most beloved players among the Barça fans. His introduction was decisive in securing the victory in the derby against Espanyol, and against Athletic Club in the Super Cup semi-finals, he was one of the best players on the pitch. This season he has already racked up eight goals and eight assists in twenty appearances. "Fermín has it all," Hansi Flick praised him a few months ago. "He runs, presses, assists, scores goals... he's pure confidence."

The footballer, born in El Campillo (Huelva), has not only won over a large part of the fanbase with his football skills, but also because he is a role model of integration: he arrived at La Masia at the age of thirteen and has decided to learn Catalan to the point that he can speak it fluently and give complete interviews despite it not being his native language. "He has Catalan in his blood, because his father was born in Gavà," explained the player's father. Fermín's paternal grandparents married very young and emigrated to Barcelona. Fermín's father and uncles were born there. When he was five, they returned to Andalusia, but the footballer's paternal family has always been closely linked to Catalonia because he has relatives in Gavà and Viladecans.

A necessary retrospective

That Fermín has been putting together some good performances and has secured, for the second time this season, a starting spot in attacking midfield – he's moved ahead of Dani Olmo, proving that Raphinha performs much better on the left wing than more centrally – is no longer news. But it's necessary to put things in perspective to understand his journey here. Behind the heartfelt embrace with which Fermín dedicated his goal to Xavi in the latter's last match on the bench in May 2024 lies one of Barça's most beautiful stories. Just a few days after that moment, Fermín received his first call-up to the Spanish national team. Only a season earlier, he had been playing in Primera RFEF, the third tier of Spanish football.

In the summer of 2023, when the majority of the international players had yet to join the preseason training, Xavi and his coaching staff called him up to supplement the initial training sessions. He wasn't a player on the first list of youth academy players the coach planned to take on the tour. In fact, Fermín's place in the reserve team wasn't even guaranteed, despite having scored twelve goals and provided five assists during his loan spell at Linares. However, in those first training sessions, he surprised Xavi – who had already noticed him when he was a youth player – with his "dynamism, his directness, and his understanding of the game," according to sources from the previous coaching staff.

The story from then on is well known: Fermín, who began to stand out with a great performance in a preseason Clásico – "the personality he showed in that match convinced us that he deserved a place in the first team," the same sources recall – has become one of Barça's most prominent midfielders.

Best wishes to Gavi

However, Hansi Flick is grateful that the player didn't pack his bags for Chelsea in the summer, despite a lucrative offer that he considered. It was also a time of some tension in the dressing room. There had been an argument with Gavi over off-field issues, who until then had been one of his best teammates. The training sessions became tense to the point that Flick had to intervene. This is now a thing of the past, sources close to the dressing room told ARA. "The relationship isn't the same as before, but it's cordial and they have mutual respect," they said. Gavi, who is out with a long-term injury, will gradually return to group training starting in February.