Óscar Mingueza seemed one of the most immovable pieces on Koeman's slate in recent months. In fact, Since the Dutch coach imposed the drawing of three centrals back, the youth squad had remained in the eleven of gala, adding thirteen consecutive games as a starter: ten in the League, two in the Cup and one in the Champions League. Since he played last February 24 against Elche (3-0) at the Camp Nou that he had not stopped entering the gala eleven. More than two months where his name always appeared among the eleven chosen by Koeman.
However, tonight this streak has ended. Against Valencia, Mingueza will start the game on the bench, coinciding, paradoxes of fate, with the week in which the club announced its renewal until 2023 and his entry into the first team for next season, with an exit clause of one hundred million euros.
His replacement will be Ronald Araújo, who will accompany Gerard Piqué and Clement Lenglet in the line of three centrals. Also keep in mind that Mingueza is warned of sanction, and among the other possible sanctions -Messi, Griezmann and De Jong- is the one who has the best chance of ending up seeing a card and miss next Saturday's game against Atlético de Madrid.
In any case, Mingueza's performance in these last two months has been exceptional, although it has also had some blur, What the anger that Koeman gave him in the game against Getafe for his inertia to go on the attack and leave the defense unguarded, which ended minutes later with his bones on the bench, or the action of the first goal of Granada, where a bad clearance of his ended up reaching the feet of Machís to finish only against Ter Stegen.