MARC GUIU: WHO ARE YOU?

Sunderland are set to bring in 19-year-old Chelsea striker Marc Guiu on a season-long loan deal, without an option to buy at the end of the season. Here’s what he’s done so far in his footballing career:

Born in Granollers, Spain, in 2006, Marc Guiu started out in football at PB Sant Celoni, a fan club of Barcelona in 2010. He remained there until 2013, when he moved to Barcelona proper. Ten years later, he made a big impact on his debut for the Catalan giants. With 11 minutes to go, he came off of the bench at home to Athletic Bilbao and, just 23 seconds later, he found the back of the net to see his side to a 1-0 victory. This broke Barcelona club records for both the youngest and fastest debutant to score, aged just 17 at the time. This came in October 2023, two months later he scored again for the senior Barcelona team. This time around it came in the Champions League group stage away to Royal Antwerp in a 3-2 defeat. 2023-24 was his first season playing senior competitive football but the bulk of his appearances and goals came for Barcelona Atletic, Barcelona’s reserves who were playing in the third tier of Spanish football at the time. They narrowly missed out on promotion to the second tier that season, losing in the playoff final. In the semi final second leg of the playoffs, Guiu scored and assisted twice in a 5-3 goalfest win against UD Ibiza. In total, he played 17 games for the reserves and scored six goals and contributed four assists, for the senior team he made seven appearances and scored twice.

All of this caught the eye of Chelsea, who parted with €6 million to bring him to Stamford Bridge in July 2024. One month after this, he made his Premier League debut as a substitute against Manchester City and his first goal for his new club occurred three months on from his first runout, with the young forward finding the target in an 8-0 drubbing of FC Noah in the Conference League group stage. December was a great month for him, as he scored five goals in just two games in the ECL, the first two came via a brace versus FC Astana and the last three via a first half hattrick against Shamrock Rovers. Unfortunately, his progress stalled between mid-February and mid-May of this year, he was forced onto the sidelines with a hamstring injury. Therefore, he missed the knockout stages of the Conference League completely, aside from a brief cameo in the final as Chelsea clinched the trophy. He did manage some game time in the Club World Cup most recently too, making two appearances from the bench in the group stage. Despite the hamstring injury, it was another good season for the youngster, winning two pieces of silverware, scoring goals in Europe and making his Premier League debut. He was only limited to three PL appearances however and that’s probably why his parent club want him to go out on loan to get some game time. Overall, he played 16 times and scored six, all of his goals came in the Europa Conference League.

On the international front, he’s been capped at an U17 and U19 level for Spain. He won the U17 Algarve Tournament with Spain in 2023 and was notable at the 2023 U17 Euros, Guiu was the competition’s joint-top scorer with four goals and was named in the Team of the Tournament. He also featured at that year’s U17 World Cup for good measure.

Despite a lack of senior experience, which may be a concern fans have with his addition at a time when we need experience to help keep us up, Guiu clearly has a lot of potential and the fact Chelsea have chosen not to allow us an option to buy clause come the end of the season is indicative of this. In 2023, he was included in a Guardian list of the 60 best players to be born in the year 2006. His former coach at La Masia (Barcelona’s youth academy), has praised his heading abilities and desire to press for the ball. Hopefully, this turns out to be a shrewd addition and he scores a few goals for us to prevent relegation.