A Sevilla club legend, journeyman goalkeeper and one player who ended up in the football backwater of Indian Premier League with Goa – what happened to the five subs on the bench with Lionel Messi for his Barcelona debut

Lionel Messi made his competitive debut for Barcelona on 16 October 2004, in a 1–0 win over Espanyol.

He had impressed in a friendly against Jose Mourinho’s Porto in November 2003, but almost a year later he had still not made it into the Catalan club’s first team.

Messi considered leaving Camp Nou – and Mourinho reportedly wanted to bring him to Chelsea when he joined the club in the summer of 2004 – but held off until being named to Frank Rijkaard’s bench for the LaLiga match .

Messi came on as a replacement for goalscorer Deco, while Andres Iniesta replaced Samuel Eto’o, and he went on to become an international icon.

But the five unused substitutes at Montjuic Stadium that night – Ruben Martinez, Fernando Navarro, Carlos Pena, Damia Abella and Cristian Hidalgo – all led very different careers.

Ruben Martinez

Substitute Ruben Martinez came through Barcelona’s youth system, having joined as a teenager in 1997, but had yet to make his senior debut for the club in October 2004.

Known simply as Ruben, he played just three games for the club, the first of which came later that year in December after Victor Valdes was sent off for Valencia.

After years on the fringes and on loan at Racing Ferrol, he joined Cartanega’s third tier in 2008 and helped them gain promotion.

He went on to make more than 150 LaLiga appearances in spells with Malaga, Rayo Vallecano, Almeria, Levante, Deportivo La Coruna and Osasuna, as well as time in Belgium and Cyprus before hanging up his gloves in 2022.

In 2018, Messi scored a hat-trick against him while in goal for Deportivo La Coruna as Barcelona claimed their 25th LaLiga title.

Fernando Navarro

The most successful of the unused substitutes, defender Fernando Navarro, also came through the ranks at Barcelona and went on to make 21 appearances for the Catalan giants.

He left Barcelona for Mallorca after a loan spell led to a permanent transfer, and then made his way to Sevilla, where an eight-year spell was full of success.

The left-back has made more than 200 league appearances for Sevilla, winning the Copa del Rey in 2010 and winning back-to-back Europa League trophies in 2014 and 2015.

Although he played only two games for the Spanish national team, one of them was in the group stage of Euro 2008 against Greece, a tournament that Spain eventually won.

In 2015, he made his way to Deportivo La Coruna, where he played his last three seasons, before retiring in 2018. In May 2019, he joined Sevilla’s sporting management team under Monchi’s supervision.

Carlos Pena

Left back Carlos Pena also came through Barcelona’s youth system, but despite making 50 appearances for Barcelona C and over 100 for Barcelona B, he never made it into the senior team.

He left for Albacete in Spain’s second tier in 2006, where he spent three years before joining Recreativo for a year.

At Valladolid, a team he joined in 2010, he helped them gain promotion from the Segunda Division to LaLiga, where they played for two years before being relegated back to the second tier.

He also played for Oviedo, Getafe and Lorca in the Segunda Division, before ending his playing career with Goa in the Indian Super League in 2020.

He started his managerial career with Goa in 2022, which lasted just over a year, before taking charge of top Thai club Ratchaburi.

Damia Abella

Fullback Damia was signed by Barcelona in 2004, at the age of 22, and played regularly for Barcelona B.

He made his senior debut two weeks after the match against Espanyol and went on to win a LaLiga winners’ medal after nine games for Rijkaard’s side.

Damia had a loan spell at Racing Santander, which helped them narrowly avoid relegation in 2006, before joining Betis.

English football fans may remember Damia from his spell at Championship club Middlesbrough, after being appointed by compatriot Altor Karanka in August 2014.

However, he made just seven competitive appearances for the North East club and retired shortly after the expiry of his contract in 2016.

The Spaniard returned to Britain to help Watford as a strategic analyst, which he is now a first-team statistical analyst at West Bromwich Albion.

Christian Hidalgo

Cristian Hidalgo was another La Masia graduate who never made a senior appearance for the club.

Between 2006 and 2009, he spent three years in LaLiga with Deportivo La Coruna, and two years with second-tier Hercules, where he helped them gain promotion to the Spanish top flight.

A short spell at Elche was followed by a tour of a varied range of European clubs, including Alki Larnaca in Cyprus, Cherno More Varna in Bulgaria and Bnei Sakhnin in Israel.

He joined Indian Super League side Chennaiyin as part of the Inaugural International Draft in 2014, where he made seven appearances and scored one goal.

After spells in Morocco and Romania, he ended his career at Andorran FC Ordino.