UEFA Conference League, the third tier European football competition, is unsirprisingly dominated by Chelsea. The 2021 Champions League winner, and second in Premier League, is the only team to have won all six group-stage matches, and with the larger goal count of all: 26 goals in six games.
That is thanks to hammerings like an 8-0 to Armenian club Noah, or Yesterday's game against Dublin based Shamrock Rovers, ending 5-1.
The "Culés", the FC Barcelona fans, are comfortable at the top of Champions League, but yesterday they might have preferred to look the other way, as last summer they let go Marc Guiu, who scored a hat-trick with Chelsea and has become the top scorer of the Conference League so far.
Why FC Barcelona let Marc Guiu go?
Marc Guiu, who turns 19 in January, was homegrown in La Masía, FC Barcelona's youth academy, and last year in the 2023-2024 season he made a splash in his debut with the main team on October 2023, scoring the only goal in a 1-0 victory to Athletic Club just 23 seconds after jumping in the field.
However, he rarely played with the main team again, serving in the third division Barcelona feeder team. And in July this year, Chelsea activated Guiu's releasea clause and the catalan player signed a five year contract with the Blues.
Given how much Barcelona likes to use its homegrown players, it is unthinkable that they couldn't afford to offer Guiu a better contract extension in Barcelona, to play alongside other gifted teenagers like Lamine Yamal, Pau Cubarsí or Marc Bernal. The club's precarious financial situation, struggling to legally register their own players, benefitted Chelsea, who has now sign a hungry "nine".
Guiu, however, is relegated by coach Enzo Manresca to Conference League. He hasn't played in Premier League since the first match in August, a 2-0 defeat against Manchester City.
"He is taking his chance and he knows that with Nicolas Jackson and Christo Nkunku there it is not easy for him, but it is important that he continues to work in the right way", Manresca said, referring to other Chelsea strikers, Nicolas Jackson and Christo Nkunku, highuer in the Chelsea hierarchy.