Carles Aleñá Castillo (born 5 January 1998) is a Spanish professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who plays as a

central midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for

Getafe Getafe () is a municipality and a city in Spain belonging to the Community of Madrid. , it has a population of 180,747, the region's sixth most populated municipality. Getafe is located 13 km south of Madrid's city centre, within a fla ...

Club career

Barcelona

Born in

Mataró Mataró () is the capital and largest town of the ''comarca'' of the Maresme, in the province of Barcelona, Catalonia Autonomous Community, Spain. It is located on the Costa del Maresme, to the south of Costa Brava, between Cabrera de Mar a ...

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ...

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the no ...

, Aleñá moved to

's youth system,

La Masia La Masia de Can Planes, usually shortened to La Masia (; en, "The Farmhouse"), is a term used for FC Barcelona's youth academy. The academy includes more than 300 young players. It has been an instrumental factor in Barcelona's European succes ...

, in 2005 at the age of 7, after a successful trial. Highly rated by the club, he made his debut with the reserves on 29 August 2015, coming on as a late substitute for

David Babunski David Babunski ( mk, Давид Бабунски; born 1 March 1994) is a Macedonian footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder for Hungarian club Mezőkövesd. A product of FC Barcelona's La Masia, he played for their reserves before tr ...

in a 0–0

Segunda División B Segunda División B ( en, Second Division B) was the third tier of the Spanish football league system containing 102 teams divided into five groups, until it was replaced by the new structure in 2021. It was administered by the Royal Spanish Fo ...

home draw against Pobla de Mafumet. On 24 November 2015, Aleñá scored a spectacular goal in a

UEFA Youth League The UEFA Youth League is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) since 2013. In its current format, it is contested by the youth teams of the clubs competing in the UEFA Champions Leagu ...

game against

Roma Roma or ROMA may refer to: Places Australia * Roma, Queensland, a town ** Roma Airport ** Roma Courthouse ** Electoral district of Roma, defunct ** Town of Roma, defunct town, now part of the Maranoa Regional Council * Roma Street, Brisbane, a ...

. He scored his first senior goal on 19 December, in a ''Barcelona B'' 2–4 away loss to Eldense. Aleñá was first included in Barcelona's main squad on 10 February 2016, remaining an unused substitute in their 1–1 away draw against

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

in the second leg of 2015-16 Copa del Rey semi-finals. He made his first team debut on 30 November of that year, starting and scoring the equalizer in an away draw against Hércules for the same scoreline, in the same competition. Aleñá made his

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known simply as Primera División in Spain, and as La Liga in English-speaking countries and officially as LaLiga Santander for sponsorship reasons, stylized as LaLiga, is the men' ...

debut on 2 April 2017, coming on as a second-half substitute for

Ivan Rakitić Ivan Rakitić (; born 10 March 1988) is a Croatian professional footballer who plays as a central or attacking midfielder for La Liga club Sevilla. Rakitić started his professional career at Basel and spent two seasons with them before he was s ...

in a 4–1 away routing of

Granada Granada (,, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the c ...

. On 28 June, he signed a three-year professional deal with Barcelona, including a release clause of €75 million. In July 2018, he was nominated for the Golden Boy award. On 4 December 2018, Aleñá was officially promoted to the first team, two days after scoring his first league goal for Barcelona against

Villarreal Villarreal ( ca-valencia , Vila-real) is a city and municipality in the province of Castellón which is part of the Valencian Community in the east of Spain. The town is located at 42 m above sea level, 7 km to the south of the province's ...

Loan to Real Betis

On 28 December 2019, Barcelona announced that they had reached an agreement with

Real Betis Real Betis Balompié, known as Real Betis () or just Betis, is a Spanish professional football club based in Seville in the autonomous community of Andalusia. Founded in 1907, it plays in La Liga. It holds home games at the Estadio Benito Vi ...

for the loan transfer of Aleñá until the end of the season. He played 19 games for the team from

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsul ...

, and scored in a 3–0 home win over

Osasuna Club Atlético Osasuna (, ''Osasuna Athletic Club''), or simply Osasuna, is a Spanish professional football club in Pamplona, Navarre. Founded on 24 October 1920, the club currently plays in La Liga, holding home games at the 23,576-capacity El ...

on 8 July.

Loan and permanent transfer to Getafe

On 6 January 2021, it was announced that Barcelona reached an agreement with

over a loan move for Aleñá until the end of the season. On 27 February, he scored his first goal for Getafe after coming off the bench in the final minutes of his team's 3–0 win against

. On 10 July 2021, Getafe reached an agreement with Barcelona to permanently sign Aleñá for five seasons. ''Barça'' also reserved the right to 50% of any future sale of the player, a buy back option plus first right of refusal on any offer.

Personal life

Aleñá's father Francesc was also a footballer; a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

, he played for several clubs in the 1980s and 1990s.

Career statistics

Honours

Barcelona *

: 2018–19 *

Copa del Rey The Campeonato de España–Copa de Su Majestad el Rey, commonly known as Copa del Rey or simply La Copa and formerly known as Copa del Presidente de la República (1932–36) and Copa del Generalísimo (1939–76), is an annual knockout footb ...

: 2016–17, 2017–18

References

External links

Profile
at the FC Barcelona website * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Alena, Carles 1998 births Living people People from Mataró Sportspeople from the Province of Barcelona Spanish footballers Footballers from Catalonia Association football midfielders La Liga players Segunda División players Segunda División B players FC Barcelona Atlètic players FC Barcelona players Real Betis players Getafe CF footballers Spain youth international footballers Spain under-21 international footballers Catalonia international footballers