Frenkie de Jong was all smiles as he relayed instructions to the substitutes bench from manager Hansi Flick that he was going to play as a right-back during the match between Barcelona and Atlético Madrid. It was a less happy moment for Alejandro Balde, who may have just seen another player leapfrog him in the pecking order.
Balde plays left-back, but João Cancelo was on the pitch, and the Portuguese could have shifted to right-back to allow Balde to play on the left. It also would have seemed perhaps
less improbable for Balde to play on the right than for De Jong, a midfielder, to come in for Brian Fariñas and play as a full-back.
Balde has lost his starting job from years prior and seems buried on the bench at the moment, even with injuries affecting Jules Koundé, Xavi Espart, and Eric Garcia, the latter of which came back from injury during that match.
The situation got even more awkward for Balde when one of the youth players who was called up as a substitute for this match, Álex Campos, asked to be informed what the rest of the bench was talking about. Ebrima Tunkara, another youth player on the bench, told Campos the news with a smile: De Jong was playing as a full-back.
Sitting stone-faced in between the two was Balde, who is being linked with an exit away from his hometown club.
