{"id":22973,"date":"2026-05-13T22:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T22:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/22973\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T22:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T22:50:09","slug":"alvaro-cortes-makes-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/22973\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00c1lvaro Cort\u00e9s makes debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wednesday was a very special day for \u00c1lvaro Cort\u00e9s. The Zaragoza-born defender not only made his debut for FC Barcelona, but did so as a starter. After several call-ups, coach Hansi Flick rewarded the defender, who joined the club in the summer of 2021, with his first minutes in central defence alongside Pau Cubars\u00ed.<\/p>\n<p>Wearing the number 36 shirt, Cort\u00e9s played as the left-sided centre-back, and was highly active in building play from the back. He looked remarkably composed throughout, while also making crucial defensive interventions, particularly in the air where he showcased his exceptional heading ability. In the 20th minute, he played a particularly key role by blocking a shot from Abde Rebbach that was on the point of surprising Szczesny.<\/p>\n<p>In the second half the defender maintained his good form, playing alongside Kounde for a period in the centre of the defence to mark a day he will never forget, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fcbarcelona.com\/en\/football\/first-team\/news\/4503291\/alaves-1-0-fc-barcelona-champions-beaten-in-vitoria\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">despite the defeat for the blaugranes.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The match marked another important step in the young Aragonese defender\u2019s Bar\u00e7a journey. After arriving from Real Zaragoza, his first team at the club was the U19B side before spending a season on loan at CF Damm. On returning to Bar\u00e7a, he took part in preseason training with Bar\u00e7a Atl\u00e8tic and made his official debut for the reserves on 27 August 2023 at SD Logro\u00f1\u00e9s.<\/p>\n<p>In the 2024\/25 season, Cort\u00e9s became a regular member of Bar\u00e7a Atl\u00e8tic and played 30 matches. A strong campaign that he capped off with his first senior squad call-up under Flick, which came on 23 November 2024 away to Celta Vigo in the league.<\/p>\n<p>Debut day<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This season, \u00c1lvaro Cort\u00e9s has served as first captain of Bar\u00e7a Atl\u00e8tic and one of the reserve side\u2019s leaders both on and off the pitch. A regular starter, he played 27 league matches (all in the starting XI) and even scored three goals. Now, he has received the opportunity every Bar\u00e7a player dreams of. He has played for the first team!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wednesday was a very special day for \u00c1lvaro Cort\u00e9s. The Zaragoza-born defender not only made his debut for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92,483],"class_list":{"0":"post-22973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-barcelona","8":"tag-barcelona","9":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}