Barcelona have missed several players through injury but one of their biggest misses has been Ter Stegen. The German goalie suffered a back injury that has kept him out for nearly three months.
The natural replacement for Ter Stegen was Inaki Pena with Barca turning to their Acadamy graduate who has been praying for such an opportunity.
Over at Barca's eternal rivals Real Madrid, injury also struck down their first-choice goalkeeper with Thibaut Courtois suffering an ACL injury at the start of the season.
Unlike Barca, Real Madrid's first instinct was to pay €1m and sign Kepa on loan from Chelsea. Their long-term Ukrainian prospect Andriy Lunin would've been hurt by that decision but he stayed patient. Lunin's opportunity eventually came when Kepa began underperforming with the Ukrainian supplanting his Spanish counterpart for good in January.
Since replacing Ter Stegen, Pena hasn't impressed as much as Barca fans would've been expecting. The eye test shows he's conceded 32 goals in 17 games and kept just three clean sheets.
Meanwhile, Lunin has conceded 13 goals in 15 games while recording six clean sheets.
Here's how both goalies have faired for expected goals allowed (xGA) so far in all competitions:
Inaki Pena -3.3 xGA
Lunin +5.9 xGA
What those numbers are telling is that Pena has conceded three more goals than he should've allowed, regardless of how poor Barca's defence has been since Ter Stegen's absence.
Meanwhile, Lunin has not conceded a single goal he could've prevented. Instead, he's helped prevent six goals Real Madrid are expected to concede.
The bottom line is, Real Madrid would be wishing they didn't spend that million on Kepa while Barcelona would be grateful to have Ter Stegen back in full training.
