Gavi is a teenage Spanish professional footballer who plays as a Central Midfielder for Catalan side FC Barcelona and the Spanish national team on regular basis.
Biography
Pablo Martín Pãez Gavira who is popularly known as Gavi was born on August 5,2004 in Los Palacios y Villafrança in the Seville province in Spain. He was born to Pablo Pãez who is his father and Gavinin Anasi who is his mother. Gavi has an older sister called Aurora Pãez Gavira. Gavi is single and has no child. Gavi's parents made football overshadowed his education as they made him pursue his talent which is football.
Height
The 19 year old footballer has a height of 1.73 metres.
Net Worth
He receives an amount of $142,300 per week totally an average of $7.5 million and has an estimated net worth of $30 million according to reports.
Club Football Life
Gavi started his youth career at a very young age where he played for La Liara; an academy in his hometown at the age of just 6. Gavi joined them in 2010 and stayed with the academy for two years before making the move to Real Betis academy side.
At Real Betis, he scored 95 goals for the academy side in just three years as the scout at La Masia saw his talent and went for his acquisition.
Gavi came to Barcelona in 2015 where he trained with the academy side up until 2021. Gavi signed his first professional contract in September 2020 with Barcelona. Gavi was to play for the U16 side but was promoted to feature for the U19 instead. Afterwards, he was called upon to play with the Barcelona B team. He made his debut off the bench in a 6-0 demolishing exercise over L'hospitalet and also started his first game in a 1-0 win over Espanyol B side.
Gavi was later called to join the Barcelona first team in their three pre-season friendly matches against Spanish lower division side Gimñastic de Tarragona and Girona. Ronald Koeman who was the Barcelona coach then gave him the last spot over fellow academy teammate as he was part of the team to face German side Stuttgart in their final pre-season match.
Gavi made his La liga debut with Barcelona on 29th August, 2021 when he was brought in on the 73 minutes against Getafe. He scored his first goal and his first assist in the same match against Elche on 18th December,2021. He contributed three times in the Supercopa de España final where he scored once and assisted twice.
Barcelona boss Xavi said this on him; " he is very good at recovering possession, taking the ball away from opponents. He is very competitive. He understands the high press very well, he is excellent at that. He turns very well when we want to play in between the lines". He talked about some aspects of Gavi's game that he needs to improve he added "but he needs to manage himself; he needs to find the right resources in the right moment knowing when to attack the space better,when to let the wingers run and when to pass it. These are the tactical situations he needs to improve".
Gavi over the year have tried to fix this into his game and play according to his manager's will since he was compared to him when he started playing.
Gavi's contract extension was accepted by the court after stern actions from the La Liga President not to make the deal go through. Details in Gavi's contract is a release clause of €1 billion and the contract expiring in 2026.
International Career
Gavi made 14 appearances for the Spanish youth teams from 2018 to 2021. He played for the U15 side where he played four times and scored once from 2018 to 2020. He played seven times for the U16 side from 2019 to 2020 and also played for the U18 Team in 2021.
Gavi received his senior national team call-up on 30th September,2021 in the Uefa Nations League tournament. He made his debut in the Uefa Nations League semi final. He went on to score his first goal for the national team against Czech Republic on June 5,2022 which made him the youngest player to score for the Spanish national team at that time.
He was part of the Spanish team that went to the recent FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. In the competition, he played all four of Spain's matches where he scored against Costa Rica in the group stages. His goal makes him the third youngest player to score at that stage.
In the international break, Gavi was called up to play in the Euro qualifiers where Spain had already qualified for the competition. In his second game against Georgia, he picked up an ACL injury on his right knee and a damage meniscus.
Gavi's injury is so severe that he would miss the remaining Barcelona matches to the end of the season, the 2024 European Championship in Germany and the Olympic Games 2024 in France as well.
Barcelona head coach Xavi had this to say on how Gavi's injury would affect his side. He said " You cannot replace him; the heart, passion and courage he plays with. We have to try and find solutions without him but it's difficult".
Honours
Gavi has won both collective and individual trophies and awards.
He won the 2022/23 La Liga, Supercopa de España 2022/23 and the the Uefa Nations League.
For individual honours he has
Kopa trophy 2022
Golden Boy 2022
IFFHS Men's Youth [U20]; Uefa Team 2022
Trofee Aldo Rovira 2021/22
Man of the match in the Supercopa de España final
The qualities of Gavi is imminent; for Barcelona and the Spanish national team, they would keep their hope on it that he can still deliver for them even after injury.
By Daniel Okyere
