Young starlet Pablo Torre doesn’t need to look far to find examples to follow when he joins FC Barcelona this summer. The 19-year-old playmaker, who impressed at Real Racing Club de Santander, arrives in Catalonia after a successful season with his hometown club, whom he helped secure promotion to LaLiga SmartBank for next season.

For example, Pedri González had a great impact in Barca in the summer of 2020 after arriving from UD Las Palmas and Gavi shone in the 2021 pre-season, with Torre now hoping to do the same this summer.

“It’s not easy to leave the club of your life, the club that is and will be my life,” Torre said on social media, in a video message to thank his club for helping him grow to this point. ‘now. “Real Racing Club de Santander is and will be my home, a home that is part of my family’s history, and I had the honor of being part of it.”

The teenager has really strong ties with the club, as his father, Esteban Torre, played for the Verdiblancos too and helped the team reach La Liga Santander in 1993.

Now, at FC Barcelona, ​​Torre will find a new home, a club that is particularly keen on bringing in talented young Spanish players. Torre is likely to get the chance to join Xavi Hernández’s first-team in pre-season and will try to convince the coach he can have a similar impact on Pedri, Gavi and Ansu Fati.

“We’ve been following him for a while,” Xavi said of Torre. “For me, it’s a natural talent. He can play in midfield, outside, he has two feet, has a great final ball, scores goals and is excellent from set pieces. He’s very young, but he’s a natural talent.

The coach continued: “He has the ability to play for Barca for many years. It depends on him now, on his attitude, but he is a humble child from a family of footballers. It is an excellent signature for the present and the future. He will be in the dynamic of the first team but will also play with the B team because it is important at this age to play football. And it’s not easy to have minutes in the first team at that age.

Obviously, Xavi has watched Torre a lot and he likes what he saw. The midfielder scored 10 goals in Spain’s third tier in 31 appearances last season and set up nine more.

Torre has also played at U19 level for the Spanish national team and, with Luis Enrique having selected young stars from FC Barcelona midfield Pedri, 19, and Gavi, 17, over the past year, Torre can expect to go far if it keeps improving and developing.

To Barca, he will find a lot of competition for a place in the team, while he may have to adapt his game a bit to play as an inside midfielder as part of a three-man midfield, rather than as an attacking midfielder, as he did with the Verdiblancos.

There may also be the possibility of operating in wider areas in attack, depending on Xavi’s plans, as Gavi did on occasion last season. Some have compared him to Real Betis midfield maestro Sergio Canales, another former Real Racing Club de Santander academy graduate.

This season, Torre has been able to take his team’s set pieces, another of his strengths, but at FC Barcelona he will likely have to move up the ranks in the months and years to come.

He may be leaving home, but Pablo Torre arrives at a club that awaits him with open arms, and there might not be a better place to develop a talent of this nature.