The incredible parallels between Sergio and Oriol Busquets

Oriol Busquets made his debtu for Barcelona in the 5-0 win over Real Murcia, showing he can be a successor to the player by the same surname, the sagred and irreplaceable Sergio Busquets.

One of the main headaches for Barcelona and the Spanish national team is finding someone who can play that role when Busquets is not available. No coach for Barcelona or Spain has overlooked Busquets since Pep Guardiola made him a starter in the 2008-09 season.

Although he still has a long way to go, the hard work of coaches at La Masia is bearing fruit and one day Oriol might be able to step in and cover Sergio. 

They have a lot of parallels... 

• Positioning, anticipation, vision of play, technical quality. Oriol Busquets has shown them all in recent years. The 18 year old from Sant Feliu de Guixols has a similar skill set to Sergio.
• The coaches highlight Oriol's maturity on the pitch, another one of Sergio's virtues - he knows when to commit a foul, when to provoke one, and the right moments to start pressuring the opponent.
• Since he arrived at Barcelona's youth team Oriol Busquets has evolved, playing all over the midfield to become more rounded, allowing him to dominate in the rondos, something Sergio Busquets is good at too.
• Although Sergio is not particularly strong or fast, he is tall and dynamic, always in movement, monitoring the ball when he doesn't have it, changing his position in relation to it and the lines of the team. With Oriol the coaches have worked since he arrived to help improve his coordination to help a player of his height, 1.85m, to have the agility and speed of movement necessary to play in the pivote position.
• Both have Blaugrana pedigree. Sergio Busquets is the son of Carlos Busquets the goalkeeper. Oriol is the son of Jordi Busquets, also a goalkeeper. He passed through La Masia between 1981 and 1984, and shared Blaugrana dreams with Tito Vilanova, Aureli Altimira and Jordi Roura. In the end he left and joined Girona, Banyoles, Guixols, Cristianenc and Tossa. Oriol's brother Pol has also played at Barcelona, in goal too.
• Oriol's idol is Lionel Messi, but through the years he has had Deco, Xavi, Iniesta, Yaya Toure and Sergio Busquets as footballing reference points. A punnet of footballers who offer a central midfielder a perfect set of examples. In any case, authentic maestros for a youngster to learn from.