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| Camp Nou sign which reads, "La Masia No Es Toca," which in short means "hands off La Masia." |
F.C. Barcelona's election day didn't produce too many surprises,
as most had anticipated. Josep Maria Bartomeu was re-elected for a 6-year term
in office. The whole thing comes down to having a support group within the
Catalan soci base, and unfortunately for hopeful Barça fans out of Catalonia, Bartomeu
had the vote of his incumbent board, who I can only suppose fancied keeping
their jobs. So that's out of the way and we (I particularly) can vent about it
all day, but it won't impact much nowadays. Most believe the club will
inevitably fall in the wrong direction in many key areas, and one of those areas
is it's valuable youth system.
"I want
to make it clear to socios and parents, that we are outraged. They (FIFA) are
punishing a model that has been around for 35 years, they're punishing the
essence of our club, a model that even FIFA has praised when Xavi, Iniesta and Messi were the
three nominees for the Ballon d'Or… We will not renounce our educational model,
we will defend all youngsters. We want this understood – La Masia will not be
touched. We will take this as far as we have to, because the truth has to be
told. We'll keep going with this, right to the end."
That
was part of the "great" speech Barcelona President Josep Maria Bartomeu used to convey to the world on April 2, 2014,
that F.C. Barcelona cared about its youth system; that F.C. Barcelona would
fight to make sure our youth players were treated properly, allowed to play,
and that, "the essence of our club," would not be tampered with. While the
subject of the speech addresses FIFA sanctions more, the passion, delivery, and
specifics conveys that Barça will keep on trusting the system that has made it
successful.
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| Josep Maria Bartomeu was recently re-elected President of F.C. Barcelona |
A situation that any reasonable Culer can see that the obvious resolution would be to let the player who has served the club well, but has experienced a great decline in performance over the past couple of seasons go.
His ideal replacement? Easy, Alejandro Grimaldo; Barça B's left-back and overall one of the finest and most promising talents in La Masia, and the world. Grimaldo has been brilliant, a shining star for the youth side, and if promoted and used, he'll be sure to bring new energy and ability which would create competition and give the starting regular Jordi Alba a run for his money.
But
instead, there are reports that the club don't want to sell Adriano because, he
wouldn't have a replacement. Aymen Abdennour (25 yrs.) and Jan Vertoghen (28
yrs.) are amongst the options the club is weighing up, neither of which would
be available to play until January if purchased this window. They are both club
left-footed centre-backs which is apparently the profile the club is searching
for, when as it stands; Barça
has 6 centre-backs, two of which are left-footed. In Grimaldo, Barcelona has
the seemingly perfect left-back replacement in its, "educational model," which
it would not, "renounce," but currently he's not even an option for the spot. The club appears to be taken a completely different approach where it considers the transfer market before it's youth ranks, which is absolutely contradictory to what Barcelona has previously done, and owes it's success in the modern era to.
That's
the biggest issue at hand. Barcelona is not considering the great talents
within the ranks of its youth systems in players like Adama, Samper, who Cules should
know about their situations, and Grimaldo. The issue is: the club had no
problem shipping off our most promising midfielder at the time, Thiago
Alcantara seen as the legendary Xavi's replacement, but when did Xavi leave, it
ended up paying an *eventual total of €41M to buy 28 year old Arda Turan (a good
player in his rights), and even submitting record €80M+ bids for Paul Pogba.
Decisions
and situations like this by the club president, board members, and even the
manager Luis Enrique are what would hurt the club in the long run. A good club
shaped it's future the present, not ship out its best youngsters, regret, it,
and then attempting to bid ridiculous fees for other players. It could all turn
around and Barca could just be loaning out the likes of Halilovic, Adama,
Grimaldo, with a grand-plan of getting them back later, but at the moment the
club is regressing in an area it has claimed to value and cherish.
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| Barça B left-back Alejandro "Alex" Grimaldo (19 yrs.) is one of the most prominent youngster in Barcelona's youth ranks. |
As Barça watch this unfold, fiercest club Real Madrid on the other hand has
made more progress in building its future. Now, Madrid's youth ranks aren't as
prolific or stretch back as Barcelona's tend to do, so they have to buy those
talents early, but still they're concentrating more on their future. They've
signed the likes of Martin Ødegaard, Marco Asensio, and Jesús Vallejo who they
hope to further develop for their future. They‘ve also centered their back-up
players around the likes of Varane, Isco, Casemiro, Lucas Vasquez, Jesé Rodriguez who are mostly from their youth side, or bought for the future.
Barcelona
on the other hand seems to be making signings of more experienced players, 28
years on average, creating questions on how the club plans to implement its
youngsters. It could all still turn around and Madrid pursue more of their,
"Galactico," method while Barca stick to the model, "that even FIFA has praised
when Xavi, Iniesta and Messi were the
three nominees for the Ballon d'Or," but Real Madrid are currently the ones
planning on.
But like I said, a club shapes its future with its current actions. Truly, only time will tell, but as we observe the situation with Barca's youth products, the question arises; out of FIFA or the club, who is really, "punishing a model that has been around for 35 years?"
More: 17 goals a realistic target for Benteke
Transfers: Bayern Munich can thrive with Vidal
But like I said, a club shapes its future with its current actions. Truly, only time will tell, but as we observe the situation with Barca's youth products, the question arises; out of FIFA or the club, who is really, "punishing a model that has been around for 35 years?"
More: 17 goals a realistic target for Benteke
Transfers: Bayern Munich can thrive with Vidal
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