Spanish football expert Graham Hunter details the new Brighton signing’s career to date, from arriving in Spain as a six-year-old from Guinea-Bissau to announcing himself on the global stage at the age of 16 for Barcelona.
That Ansu Fati thrives, thrills and terrifies defenders in the Premier League isn’t just important for Roberto De Zerbi, Brighton or even Xavi Hernandez and Barcelona, to whom the 20-year-old forward is scheduled to return next June.
It’s vital to anyone who adores brilliance – who is inspired when outrageous talent violently grabs our attention and makes our pulses race.
Yes, Ansu’s potential is genuinely that exceptional.
This angelic footballer has had his wings clipped a little over the last couple of seasons.
But when you watch him, please do as often as possible, you’ll immediately notice inherent 24-carat class.
And don’t let the records Ansu has set do the talking for him: they are dry stats and he, himself, pays them little heed.
An all-round talent
Yes, he’s the youngest-ever Champions League scorer, the youngest to hit the net for Spain, the youngest-ever to score a brace of goals for Barcelona.
But it’s what he can still do, indeed what he was doing before a clutch of meniscus operations and a debilitating thigh problem, which marks him as truly special.
In those early goals for the Camp Nou club you’ll see, literally, everything. Volleys, headers, left foot, right-foot finishes.
Street-smart dribbling, explosive pace, daring, wit, vision, intelligence – all the elements which make us addicted to football.
Mostly demonstrated at the age of 16 and 17!
Earning respect of Suarez and Griezmann
A couple of snapshots help explain how Brighton’s newest recruit grabbed global attention, and immediately forced Barcelona to insert a €1billion buyout clause in his contract.
Take the construction of his goal in December 2019, when aged 17, that earned Barca their first ever win over Internazionale Milano at San Siro.
In the 86th minute, Ansu slides the ball into the feet of Luis Suarez. The veteran Uruguayan striker can take, turn and shoot, as he’s done thousands of times.
Instead, Suarez chooses to play the one-two and Ansu, well outside the box, buries the ball in the bottom corner of Samir Handanovic’s net.
“I was a little surprised – but I made the stadium quiet” Fati said after.
Suarez had seen Ansu in training. He knew.
Or this phenomenon’s first Camp Nou goal, against Valencia in September 2019, aged 16.
A right-wing cross from Frenkie De Jong and a dummy from Antoine Griezmann. Ansu slots home on the volley, 81,000 Barca fans noisily erupt, but the theme is: Griezmann also knew.
Senior players, like the Uruguayan and Frenchman, usually feel threatened, jealous, when teenage tyros come along. These two treated him as what they knew he was: utterly exceptional.
Reunited with his father
Strangely, Ansu’s dad, Bori, actually took the longest time to notice his son’s unnatural ability.
Bori left the Fati’s native Guinea-Bissau in search of work, leaving his wife and young family behind for years.
Having worked in the town landfill site in Herrera, a tiny community an hour outside Seville, Bori chauffeured for a local communist politician, famous for dedicating his career towards eradicating poverty and promoting workers’ rights.
He helped to secure the paperwork for Ansu, his mum and three siblings to move to southern Spain.
The six-year-old kid who’d go on to startle the world had only played street football in Guinea-Bissau, with rolled-up socks strung together for a ball. Herrera locals, who already adored Bori, donated clothes to the family so that they’d cope with winter in Spain.
Best of all: Ansu met Bori.
“When we landed in Spain, I didn’t know my father,” Fati told L’Equipe. “I had seen photos of him and we talked occasionally on the phone, but that was it.
“I ran into his arms when we met at Seville airport. He had gone off alone to earn money in Europe when I was very young. He wanted a better life for us.
“He could have left and forgotten about us, like others do, but he worked hard to bring us here.”
Earning admirers in Spain
But Bori was working such long, unsociable hours to support his growing family that when Ansu and his brothers wandered off to the local sports centre to play football, he barely paid attention.
Nor could he accede to young Ansu’s constant petitions to accompany them and watch his boys play.
When, eventually, he did, Bori’s surprise was enormous. Everyone told him: your boys are fantastic!
Bori even recalls returning from work at 2am one morning to find a cluster of admirers, including professional scouts, at his front door, there to bend his ear.
Following a couple of seasons in Sevilla’s youth system, then rejecting Real Madrid to sign for Barcelona at the age of 10 (because Madrid didn’t then have a residence for young players and Barca had La Masia), Ansu’s journey, which would take him to the Amex, Premier League and De Zerbi’s tuition, had begun.
Victor Valdes, the ex-Barca ‘keeper and Ansu’s former coach, says: “He’s total anarchy when he gets the ball.”
PSG coach Luis Enrique, who gave Ansu his Spain debut, adds: “Ansu’s most attractive qualities are his technical abilities. But he’s also a special player in terms of reading the game.”
Bouncing back
Now it’s down to De Zerbi, the special, swashbuckling Brighton football and Ansu’s bruised self-confidence after those brutal injuries to re-establish his anarchy.
A big task, possibly a gradual one. But, if they pull it off, Premier League defences beware.
