Last year, I wrote about my concerns regarding the future of Barça’s future with respect to the treatment of Barça B graduates on the first team. Now, that concern has grown as Barça’s vision towards the future seems murky with Barça B struggling and the first team not investing in the right players for the long haul.
We have witnessed Barça drift away from making sure Barça B and the rest of La Masia remain successful and be an important asset for the first team. Barça B is back in the third division where they are currently languishing in the relegation zone after a poor start to the season that saw them capture two wins from their first eight matches. FIFA also harmed La Masia after some youth players were barred from being with the Blaugrana, which caused the transfer ban in the first place. All in all, the club’s poor handling of the threat of a transfer ban affected the first team and the youth setup.
The transfer ban also caused Barça to go on a shopping spree last season prior to the ban taking effect. The Blaugrana brought in a lot of new faces. Some were good, some were bad, and some were injured who were hardly a factor. Of course, Barça went on to win the treble last season so everyone thought it was a great plan. Barça went ahead and signed Aleix Vidal and Arda Turan this past summer for this season, even though they will have to wait till January 2016 to play for the club. Following the number of injuries the club has suffered this season, along with the departure of Pedro, there is talk of even more transfers when the transfer window opens up again in January without any mention of calling up Barça B players to fill the void. Players such as Álex Grimaldo who should be deputizing for Jordi Alba is ignored for the likes of Mathieu and Adriano, with the latter being offered a new deal, while startlet Sergi Samper is also being ignored by Luis Enrique while Gumbau gets to train with the first much to everyone’s surprise since Samper is considered the rising star.
There has been some grumbling that Barça are distancing themselves from La Masia by solely relying on transfers. Young talent such as Adama and Halilović, who were considered rising stars for the first team, have been sent out on loan to another club. Moreover, Deulofeu and Denis Suarez are out on loan yet again. It’s hard to see how the B team will improve and gain promotion when the majority of the best talent are no longer there. Maybe it could have been different if the team did not suffer relegation which would have allowed those players to face the second best of what Spanish football has to offer. Of course, the bigger concern is no longer whether Barça B can win promotion back to the second division again but, whether they can avoid a second successive relegation. The good news is that there a lot of good up and coming talent from the lower ranks of La Masia. The bad news though is how good can they be for the growth and progress of the first team if Barça B are playing in the third or fourth division?
Another issue of concern was whether La Masia has become a source of revenue for Barça. Some argue that if selling these young talents can help bring in better talent than can help the first team, then so what? Sure, those young players may benefit from playing elsewhere and then can be brought back through a buy back clause or once the loan is over. Perhaps, that is a good argument however; it appears that the sale of these young talents contributes towards the shopping spree piggy bank. With any luck, the club learned from the Cesc transfer and will try to avoid making the same mistake of overspending on former youth players. Hopefully they do not forget about those players out on loan too.
Yet, the biggest concern for some of the Blaugrana faithful, including myself, is the future of Barça’s current squad. Is the club interested in a long term vision or just a short term quick fix? If we look ahead to the next three and five years, will Barça have the proper players available to continue to be contenders? In three years, Busquets, Rakitic, Pique, Luis Suarez, Messi, Turan, and Vermaelen will be in their 30’s. A few more years, those players will be either gone or retired. As of now, Sandro, Munir, Rafinha, Ter Stegen, Neymar, Bartra, Sergi Roberto, Bartra, Jordi Alba and Aleix Vidal will still be in their 20’s after three years with the latter two reaching their 30s in five years. Thus, Barça will be looking at another major shopping spree in the near future to restock their first team.
Meanwhile, Real Madrid, perhaps in anticipation of a possible transfer ban of their own, went ahead and made some interesting moves this past summer. They brought back Casemiro and Lucas Vázquez to the club from their loan spell and signed Danilo and Kovacic who all happen to be 24 or younger. Madrid’s current squad is currently stacked with young players such as Kovacic, Varane, Jesé, Casemiro, Carvajal, Isco, James Rodriguez, Lucas Vasquez, Cheryshev, Danilo, Nacho, and Kroos who are all in their early 20s and will still be in their 20’s in five years with the exception of the latter two, who will be hitting their 30s. Moreover, Gareth Bale is 26, Benzema and Marcelo are 27, Keylor Navas is 28, while Sergio Ramos and Kiko Casilla are 29. Only Ronaldo, Modric, Pepe, and Arbeloa have hit the 30 age mark. At the moment, it appears that Madrid have a better long term plan with a young talented squad than Barça, but then again, this is Madrid where players come and go at depending on Florentino Perez’s mood.
Nonetheless, it was those kinds of transfers that made some Barça fans question the logic of signing a 28 year old Arda Turan, who will be 29 when he makes his debut, when they could have signed a 21 year old Kovacic instead. If the club doesn’t trust the youth players, then sign younger players who can give you 5-6 years at least.
Ultimately, Barça needs to make sure they are taking care of their youth players properly so they can eventually be part of the first team while buying players so both can continue this club’s successful run. The club cannot rely on just the youth or just on transfers, but on both. Barça need to keep an eye out for the future. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “You may delay, but time will not.” Barça needs to reexamine their long term vision before it is too late and realize they are relying on the old guard with no clear new guard in sight.
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