It takes a bold coach to mention a 17-year-old in the same breath as Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta and Pedri. Ophir Haim, who has spent the past few years guiding Israel's age-group national teams to a European final and a World Cup semi-final, did exactly that this week when asked about Orian Goren, the Israeli midfielder rising through Barcelona's academy.

"His DNA is very similar to their players, whether it's Xavi and Iniesta in the past or Pedri and Gavi today," Haim said, according to ONE. "He has many things he still needs to improve, in my opinion he should look for goals more, but you cannot take the ball from his foot no matter how strong you are. It's very hard to pressure Orian, he doesn't lose the ball."

It is a striking endorsement from a coach not prone to hyperbole. Haim led Israel to the final of the 2022 European Under-19 Championship, losing 3-1 to England after extra time, before taking largely the same group to the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Argentina, where Israel knocked out Brazil on the way to the semi-finals.

Goren, born in Savyon on March 15, 2009, is the player Israeli football now watches most closely from abroad. He began at Maccabi Petah Tikva's youth ranks at eight before his family relocated to Spain, where he passed Barcelona's academy trials at 14 and joined La Masia in 2023.

He has since progressed through Barcelona's junior sides as a technically gifted attacking midfielder, comfortable as a No. 8, a false nine or on the left, and signed his first professional contract with the club as a teenager still a year shy of senior football.

That senior football arrived this preseason. Goren came off the bench for Barcelona in a 4-1 friendly win over Europa CE at the Joan Gamper training complex, the club's opening match of preparations for the 2026/27 campaign under Hansi Flick, who fielded a squad heavy on academy prospects with several first-team regulars rested.

According to ONE, Goren has since taken part in a closed Barcelona training match and is expected to travel with the squad to the club's pre-season training camp in England — another marker of how quickly his stock has risen inside the club.

The Pedri comparison is not new, and Goren has addressed it himself. "Both of us play position 8 and manage the game," he told Sport5 earlier this year. "Many people say our playing style reminds one another." He was quick to add some perspective: "But that's Pedri. There's still much to aspire to."

For Haim, the priority is making sure Israel does not lose track of Goren as Barcelona's development machine takes over. The midfielder has already earned seven caps and a goal for Israel's Under-17s and three more at Under-19 level, and the federation clearly wants him locked into the senior pathway even as his club career accelerates in Catalonia.

Nobody in Tel Aviv or Barcelona is pretending Goren is the finished product Haim's comparison implies — the coach's own caveat, that he needs to add goals to his game, made that clear. But for a country that has produced few genuine La Masia prospects, a teenager drawing Xavi and Iniesta comparisons from his national-team coach is news worth savoring.