La Masia: Leo dos Reis

The Cadet A team is creating quite a buzz for their midfield talent, including Jorge Alastuey, Txus Alba and Xavi Simons, but obviously someone has to be banging in all those goals up top for these teenage maestros. Enter Leo dos Reis. The Catalan-born striker is the lanky frontman for this prodigious group of starlets, a player with the physical profile to lead the line and the background of a La Masia success.

Leo dos Reis Muniz was born January 23, 2003 in Barcelona to a successful futsbal player, Marcelo dos Reis. The elder dos Reis was born in Manaus, Brazil and made the move to Spain in 1995 to join up with Garcia Industries to continue his futsal career. So much of the younger dos Reis' upbringing revolved around his father's profession, and Leo got his start basically as a toddler playing futsal while his father was at Polaris World Cartagena. He began playing football at Cornellá for the 2012-13 season and during this time he was reportedly courted by Barcelona to play for their indoor team.

The youngster opted to remain at Cornellá for three seasons until 2014-15 when Barcelona came calling again. As his father's futsal career showed no signs of stopping, Leo dos Reis made the move to La Masia to join Infantil B for the 2015-16 season. In fact, the 45-year-old's career is still ongoing at MFK Dina Moscow where he plays as a pivot in the Russian first division.

Leo dos Reis settled in with a talented batch of players and made his biggest leap as a player last year as a member of Sergi Milá's Cadet B. Now standing over 1.84 m (six feet) tall, dos Reis towered over his opposition and knocked in 22 goals. The highlight of his season may have been in the penultimate match of their campaign against local side Viladecans when he came off the bench to score a hat-trick. His team sailed to a 7-1 win and brought them within a point of their eventual league title.

He has continued his rise this season, leading the Cadet A's with ten goals and scoring a hat-trick against Damm back in November. As he continues to find the back of the net, it's hard to argue that his progression isn't on the right path. The fears for the player at this stage in his career is that it seems that with his lanky frame he is not equipped with the sprinting speed necessary to compete with the fastest of defenders and this will limit his effectiveness going forward.

Nevertheless, a tall target forward will always have a place in football and if Leo dos Reis can develop some wheels as he continues to score goals at his current pace, it's hard to deny that the son of a futsal star has a sensational future ahead of him.

Source: barcablog.com