Barcelona goalkeeper Inaki Pena almost left the Catalans giants for Manchester United in his youth, the player’s former La Masia coaches have revealed this week.
Pena joined Barcelona’s academy ranks from Villarreal when he was 13 years of age and has been fully fledged first-team player for just over two seasons. He is getting an extended run due to Marc-Andre ter Stegen’s injury and is, for now, fending off competition from Wojciech Szczesny.
But things were very nearly so different and his career almost took an alternative path.
When Pena was 15, he was offered the chance to join Manchester United and was going to take it until being talked out of leaving by incoming La Masia chiefs Jordi Roura and Aureli Altimira.
“We found ourselves in a mess because he had agreed to go to Manchester United. He had travelled there and everything. He had it done,” the pair revealed to Mundo Deportivo.
“But we spoke to him, we presented him with our future plan, what we expected from him. To our surprise, we convinced him and he decided to stay. A spectacular kid, a top-notch professional. We are happy that he has had the opportunity and that he is responding the way he is doing.”
Despite Barcelona’s longstanding reputation for producing professional players, Pena wouldn’t have been the first to leave La Masia before graduating. Gerard Pique did join Manchester United back in 2004 when he was just 17 years of age, while Cesc Fabregas moved to Arsenal at 16 the year prior.
More recently, Andre Onana was at La Masia for five years, before moving to Ajax aged 19. Hector Bellerin was a similar story to Fabregas, moving to Arsenal as a 16-year-old.
Onana is now at Manchester and is only the club’s third starting goalkeeper of the last 19 years following long stints from Edwin van der Sar (2005-2011) and David de Gea (2011-2023).
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