Pitarch was born in Fuenlabrada, in the Madrid region, and grew up fully immersed in Spanish football, progressing through local academies before joining Real Madrid’s renowned La Fabrica system. <\/p>\n
He holds dual Spanish and Moroccan nationality, giving him the option to represent either country at senior international level.<\/p>\n
Under Fifa eligibility rules, players may represent multiple nations at youth level without being permanently tied, with the final decision only binding once they appear in a competitive senior international match.<\/p>\n
Pitarch has featured for Spain at youth level, representing both the under-19 and under-20 sides, and took part in the 2025 Fifa Under-20 World Cup, where Spain reached the quarter-finals. <\/p>\n
Despite this, he has yet to commit to either senior national team, who are monitoring his rise with interest. <\/p>\n
In a recent interview, Pitarch confirmed: “I haven’t made my final decision yet. Things are great with Spain, but I’ll make a decision soon.”<\/p>\n
His situation mirrors that of other dual nationality talents such as Real team-mate Brahim Diaz and Barcelona forward Lamine Yamal. While 18-year-old Yamal chose Spain, Diaz opted to represent Morocco. <\/p>\n
For now, Pitarch’s focus is on establishing himself in the Real side and repaying Arbeloa’s faith.<\/p>\n
He played 74 minutes in the 2-1 win at City, which sealed a 5-1 aggregate success and last-eight tie with Bayern Munich.<\/p>\n
He was replaced by another academy player in Manuel Angel to emphasise Arbeloa’s trust in younger players to help the club pursue future success.<\/p>\n
Following his impressive impact so far on European football’s biggest stage, Pitarch is expected to play a key role in that.<\/p>\n
“Arbeloa treats me the same. We handle it very naturally. I try not to think about it too much – I have to earn my minutes on the field,” he said after the win at Etihad Stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pitarch was born in Fuenlabrada, in the Madrid region, and grew up fully immersed in Spanish football, progressing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2026],"tags":[7],"class_list":{"0":"post-820907","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116255124664001269","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}