FC Barcelona Case, Will the club struggle with youth talents inflation?

One of the main features of Barcelona’s success in the past few years is their reliance on their youth academies in building the first team. FC Barcelona provided unique evidence that big clubs can win titles –lot of titles- depending on the products of their youth farms. Make no mistake, the club spent generously on buying quality players as well. Yet, any observer can assure that the framework was based on the likes of Puyol, Iniesta, Xavi, Messi, and the reactivated youth product Gerard Pique after a nap outside the Catalan orbit.

One of the reasons leading to that successful integration of the youth in the first team was the concurrence of their qualities with the opportunities available in the squad. Puyol and Xavi were already two of the most experienced and reliable players at the beginning of the new cycle of success during Frank Rijkaard’s era. Valdes got his chance in the first match of the season 2003-2004 instead of Rüştü Reçber who recovered from an injury one day before the match. His weak Spanish language was another reason for Rijkaard to bench the experienced Goalkeeper who responded: “It is not normal for a goalkeeper of my history and caliber to be left out because I don't speak Spanish.” Well, he had his chance to prove his doubters wrong. Yet, his performance made it possible even for a deckchair to take his place. Valdes opportunity to become a first teamer was the unavoidable outcome of the need to turn things around. FC Barcelona’s U-turn in that season from a catastrophic start to a brilliant comeback was an outcome of many factors. Ronaldinho’s magic was one. Signing Edgad Davids was another. Benching Rüştü Reçber was a given.

Andrés Iniesta’s promotion curve was so long that you can’t expect any other youth to have that level of generosity and patience to work and wait. He made his debut on 29 October 2002 in a UEFA Champions League game against Club Brugge, thanks to Louis van Gaal. But he had to wait more than two years to become an established first team player. His uncontroversial character and kind attitude helped him adapt with the life in the shadows of other starters –while most of the time he deserved more playing time than some of those. The departure of Deco and Ronaldinho sealed Iniesta’s position as an indispensible starter. 

Messi had the qualities to help him finding his way to the first team. Yet, even during the Rijkaard’s seasons one can notice something missing while analyzing Barca’s offense. With Eto’o scoring for fun through the center and Ronaldinho being his brilliant self, the right flank was just ordinary to say the least. That fact increased the need to promote that young talent to fill that need. That’s why, there was no real threat on Messi’s destiny to become a key player for the club. 

Pedro’s and Busquet’s integration was as smooth as a knife slicing butter. They filled the need of depth in the first team. They took that chance to develop their qualities rapidly before taking advantage of the drop in form the first options suffered to hijack their spots and stamp themselves as key players. 

Though for every happy story there is a less entertaining tale. In the past few years Barcelona had to deal with some Youth-related complications. There is the Giovani vs Bojan incident where the two players were the subject of favor-ism between the fans to extend that Giovani was regularly whistled by the home fans. 

Bojan himself demonstrates another challenge. Not only is the first team under the pressure of achieving good results, but also Barcelona B. When Barcelona B suffered a relegation experience before, Bojan refused to play in the lower division and threatened the club to leave. Barcelona had only one choice and that is to promote him to the first team though he was not ready. That factor hammered the player development later on. At the moment, the youth teams are producing waves after waves of quality talents and one can only wonder how will Barcelona manage to protect their youth assets if Barcelona B relegated to a division the youth feels uninterested to compete in? Especially if we keep in mind that there are lot of Arsenes and Wengers waiting on the corner. 

In the other hand, having your reserve team in the second division and almost close to compete for a promotion to the first division where the first team compete (Though legally they can’t play there) make your youth feel they are more ready to play for the first team after serving one season in the reserve. 

That’s a tricky situation when you have six or seven players expecting to be promoted in a year or –at most two. Is there enough space in Barcelona’s squad for all the upcoming youth? I can name five defenders, three midfielders who have a quality talent that eventually will make them knock the first team door in the following two years. Is there enough room for them, knowing that signing new players from outside the club is a given? If anyone thinks it is just a case the club will need to fix with only the current Barcelona B players then just have a look on the other youth ranks. How will Barcelona satisfy the demand of having such an extremely successful youth policy?

Youth players who survived in the club till they earned their place in the first team were those who saw the light at the end of the tunnel early –like Messi and Busquets. If you are a young midfielder playing for Juvenil A squad, you look forward and see four years of Xavi added to eight to ten ears of Iniesta, twelve years of Jonathan Dos Santos and Thiago Alcantara, then contentious news of the imminent acquisition of Cesc Fabregas. He will not be that certain that doing an Iniesta and wait will be smarter than doing a Cesc Fabregas.

The key issue here is the threat that FC Barcelona may start over-depending on the youth in a way that affect the squad quality. That will lead to a decline in performance which will damage first and before anything else the youth development. One of the main reasons why Messi found it smooth to develop was the fact that he was introduced to the first team at a period where the team was performing well. He integrated without lot of pressure. Giovani Dos Santos was not that lucky, for example.

The answer is easy, the need of taking brave decisions offloading the good youth so we keep a space for the best. Yet, won’t that send a bad message for the youth so they start looking for the exit door as soon as they can? And more importantly, will that make future talents more hesitant to join the club academy in the future?

Posted by Ramzi on 13:55. Filed under Barcelona, bojan, Cesc, Fabregas, Football, iniesta, Messi, Xavi . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0