Leeds United are making it something of a regular thing bringing in Spanish talent to stock the current Under-23 Development Squad. They are at it again and have been back to world football giants Barcelona.
According to unofficial Leeds United youth account Lufcyouth on Twitter (@leedsutdacademy), the Whites have gone back to the Nou Camp, home of world football superstars Neymar and Lionel Messi, to bring in yet another La Masia graduate in 19-year-old central defender Oriol Rey.
Welcome to Oriol Rey the 19 year old centre half joins from Barcelona and signs a 2 year contract with #LUFC u23s
— LUFC Youth Academy (@leedsutdacademy) July 27, 2017
Whilst ‘unofficial’ in nature, this account does have a track record of showing recent additions to the Leeds United youth ranks signing on at Elland Road – additions such as Ousama Siddiki and Adrian Balboa.
It also recently revealed that the Whites had dipped in to Barcelona’s ranks to bring highly rated young striker Kun Temenuzhkov. Now it appears that the former Barcelona striker will have a former teammate at the side of him in Leeds with Rey.
The 19-year-old, who completed the most minutes for the Barcelona Juvenil A side in their run to the UEFA Youth League Semi-Final, was actually a central midfielder before last season being converted into a central defender. Seven of his games for Gabi Garcia’s Juvenil A side were in this newly-converted position, the other of his eight appearances in the competition coming as a defensive midfielder.
The above Instagram post was posted around 5p.m. this afternoon and contains the following message amongst the thank yous to staff of his former club Barça. As well as thank the staff at the Nou Camp, where he has been since he was six-years-old, he says: “New challenges and new opportunities are coming. I’m counting on being grateful for everything I’ve learned.”
It seems that those “new opportunities” will be away from the Catalan heartland and in West Yorkshire, the youngster swapping one cauldron of noise in the Nou Camp for another, admittedly smaller one, in the shape of Elland Road.
