Are Barça becoming just another super team?

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/nov/06/barcelona-transfers-superclub-luis-suarez-neymar

Haven't they always been like that? But got pretty lucky through youth development from their great academy. It's not like they didn't buy Henry or Eto'o etc

Not like they didn't buy R9, Rivaldo, Kluivert, Cocu, Overmars, Saviola, Riquelme, Rafa Marquez, Ronaldinho, Gio, Eto'o, Van Bommel, Deco, Giuly, Thuram, Zambrotta, Abidal, Yaya, Henry, Dani Alves, Ibra, Masch, Villa, Cesc, Sanchez, etc.

That's just off the top of my head. This Suarez-Neymar business has been there for a very long time. This youth business crap is so very much a myth.

Lazy and arbitrary article. Barca spent € 80M on Ibra. The official numbers are € 69M-ish because they are somehow valuing Eto'o so low but € 46M cash + prime Eto'o = € 80M any day, any week. If not more. Eto'o was never worth less than Villa who came for € 40M (+ bonuses if I'm not mistaken) when he was Eto'o age when he got shipped out. RVP went to United for € 30M with 1 year remaining on his contract. In which universe is prime Eto'o = € 20M?

Factoring in inflation Ibra and Villa cost Barca almost as much as Nerman + Suarez. Did Jonathan Wilson write about loss of identity in 2010 as well? Obviously not because Barca was walking to trophies. Now that Barca isn't similar transfer operations are somehow defining a loss of identity.

If anything Barca have postponed proper investments in the squad for far too long and relied on Pedro, Tello, Fabregas false 9, Iniesta on the wing etc. In 2013 Barca put out this frontline in CL quarter and semi finals at home: Villa(post leg break)-Fabregas-Pedro. The less said about the defense the better. From Alex Song to Adriano (a midget wingback) to Bartra being thrown into a CL semi-final in Allianz with 2 games played the entire season I've seen it all.

Don't call me James wrote:
That's just off the top of my head. This Suarez-Neymar business has been there for a very long time. This youth business crap is so very much a myth.

Let's not forget that Barca spends by far more on their youth academy than anyone else... If they produce a homegrown player every 2 years that's a €50M signing in itself. (Last time I checked, and the data is a few years old now Barca was was spending €25M a year - by comparison Arsenal and Bayern spend €3M a year and Inter and Ajax are runners up at €6M.)

Last time I checked the god they worship was a world record signing himself

What a poorly researched article - you get Harold Goldberg researching for months to come up with an article for LoL esports in Playboy(might be NSFW) to make sure he captures the scope. and then you go around and see an article like this from a professional publication that pretty much has all the clues as to why it's a bulls*** article in the article itself.

lol at this article .

i recall a not so distant past when Barça had only one local player in their starting 11 ( guardiola ).

They will be a Super Team for now, at least. Still capable of winning any tournament they find themselves in.

I think they'll need a few more top defenders and midfielders to become a super team

Phritz wrote:

Don't call me James wrote:
That's just off the top of my head. This Suarez-Neymar business has been there for a very long time. This youth business crap is so very much a myth.

Let's not forget that Barca spends by far more on their youth academy than anyone else... If they produce a homegrown player every 2 years that's a €50M signing in itself. (Last time I checked, and the data is a few years old now Barca was was spending €25M a year - by comparison Arsenal and Bayern spend €3M a year and Inter and Ajax are runners up at €6M.)

Last time I checked the god they worship was a world record signing himself

What a poorly researched article - you get Harold Goldberg researching for months to come up with an article for LoL esports in Playboy(might be NSFW) to make sure he captures the scope. and then you go around and see an article like this from a professional publication that pretty much has all the clues as to why it's a bulls*** article in the article itself.

Your not factoring in the money they get from selling there youth players either.  You can't say every 2 years is like a 50 mill purchase.  That's insane.  Nor are you factoring in that players like Messi, Xavi, Puyol, Iniesta have such an insane monetary value to the club they could never be measured in a one year sale price.

Over the last decade there "worth" is so great that it really can't be measured.

For instance Ronaldo was produced by Sporting if I'm not mistaken, they received pennies on the dollar for his career where Barca tend to get so much more from there youth products.

Nor are your numbers anywhere near correct.  Here is a little more realistic view on La Masia,

"La Masia houses about 60 players: 10 in the farmhouse, and the rest in rooms of the adjacent stadium; the rest of the youth players must provide for their own accommodation.  The academy is one of the most expensive in Europe, operating at a cost of £5 million a year. The main cost is the dormitory, La Masia itself"

Yes, Barcelona have the most expensive youth system but it's not anywhere close to 500% more expensive than any other youth system.  That's just crazy.

Then you also have this,

"In the 30 years since La Masia's inauguration, more than 500 youngsters have left their homes and families to stay at the academy. About half of them were from Catalonia, and the rest came from other parts of the world. Of those 500, about 10 percent made it into the first team."

No other academy has 10% of there core youth set up play in the first team especially not anyone competing for the champions league or league titles.

Also, people tend to blow things way out of proportion.

Against Madrid in the Clasico 14 players played for Barcelona, 7 where from there youth academy, this is against the best team in the world.

I would love to see any other big team try that and not seem like the coach has gone totally mad.

Barcelona are still totally unique in it's culture and the talent they produce.  It's not just the number of players either.  4 of probably the top 10 players of this generation came from that academy Xavi, Iniesta, Mesi and Puyol.

Yes they can't field an entire starting 11 like they did a couple years ago with youth players but no other big team still comes anywhere close to what they do.

Phritz wrote:Let's not forget that Barca spends by far more on their youth academy than anyone else... If they produce a homegrown player every 2 years that's a €50M signing in itself. (Last time I checked, and the data is a few years old now Barca was was spending €25M a year - by comparison Arsenal and Bayern spend €3M a year and Inter and Ajax are runners up at €6M.)

I'm fairly certain that includes building the new youth training facilities which will not be an ongoing expense going forward.

Fußball wrote:Lazy and arbitrary article. Barca spent € 80M on Ibra. The official numbers are € 69M-ish because they are somehow valuing Eto'o so low but € 46M cash + prime Eto'o = € 80M any day, any week. If not more. Eto'o was never worth less than Villa who came for € 40M (+ bonuses if I'm not mistaken) when he was Eto'o age when he got shipped out. RVP went to United for € 30M with 1 year remaining on his contract. In which universe is prime Eto'o = € 20M?

Yes but before the argument seemed to be "Barca can afford to splash in a few positions because so many of their players were produced by their academy". That argument holds a lot less truth to it when less than half the team is home-grown.

Not that I agree with the article, I just thought it would make interesting coversation.

It's all about cycle. La Masia can produce good/great players every years.

It's all about cycle. La Masia cannot produce good/great players every year.

@Dnmac4

Actually Bayern have/had quite some players of their own youth in their starting setup, too. (Philipp Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Holger Badstuber, Thomas Müller, to a lesser account also Diego Contento, Toni Kroos, and David Alaba - only looking at the Bayern starting teams of the CL finals and semis from 2010 on) and now the new guys Pierre-Emile Höjbjerg and Gianluca Gaudino and possibly soon Lucas Scholl, too.

Well you aren't always going to have a golden generation are you? And even before Pep's era, I'm quite sure there weren't 7 players from La Masia lined up in Barca's 11.

Historically Barca have always relied on record signings. Signings like Nerman and Suarez are just a return to the norm for them.

Zealous wrote:Historically Barca have always relied on record signings. Signings like Nerman and Suarez are just a return to the norm for them.

+1

They got lucky just like Yanited got lucky with the class of 92.

Even their manager was a major signing from Real Madrid.

Anyway, this sums up my thoughts on said article

The Guardian wrote:conveyer belt journalism top tip #139:

find an exception to a rule, then present it as if it were the rule; your readers won't notice the fragile mozzarella strings with which your central argument is held together. you can then write a piece which presents the passing into history of an anomaly as a decisive, seismic PARADIGM SHIFT (you can even dig out an old column describing the then-ongoing emergence of the same anomaly, change the date then just, like, move words around and shit)

THE PUBLIC SPHERE

rwo power wrote:@Dnmac4

Actually Bayern have/had quite some players of their own youth in their starting setup, too. (Philipp Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Holger Badstuber, Thomas Müller, to a lesser account also Diego Contento, Toni Kroos, and David Alaba - only looking at the Bayern starting teams of the CL finals and semis from 2010 on) and now the new guys Pierre-Emile Höjbjerg and Gianluca Gaudino and possibly soon Lucas Scholl, too.

Yea, no doubt they have one of the best youth systems in the world.

But, as they have produced those players you are kind of mismatching a bit.

Against Madrid last year they started a ton of there own youth players and are probably as close to Barca as you can get.

But i mean Kroos isn't there, Badstuber has had terrible injury issues, Contento isn't there anymore etc.

The article this thread is based on is almost like saying Bayern are getting away from there roots because they spend money and sold Toni Kroos.  

Both Barca and Bayern are integrating there "new" youth players over the last couple years to lessen the load on there aging stars and eventually replace them as the core of both teams (even though a ton of people think Bayern is Ribery and Robben- the core is really Bastian, Lahm, Muller and Alaba) have so much domestic and international miles on there legs.

I mean the article was talking about this year, if we go back a couple years it was commonplace to see Barca starting 8-9 youth team players almost every game.

I don't think any club can sustain that, if they want to compete for major trophies.

And in no way am I pointing at you for this but it seems the press and opposing fans always want to take shots at Barca for spending money, I don't get it.

There one of the most profitable clubs in the world and the pressure is massive for them to win every single year plus they have to compete with the ATM machine that is Madrid domestically every season.  

It's almost like a "see we told you so" thing that goes on when  we buy Neymar and Suarez but no Barca fans ever claim we don't buy players.

Even people in this thread have said Barca always buys players in a negative sense?  Well, no shit.  

This isn't some dirty secret, buying players doesn't take way from there idea's and brand as a club.  They raise there players to play a certain way and they play that way all the way up to when they step on the field in La Liga and generally try to promote players and coaches from within.

If the players we buy don't fit our system we ship them out no matter how good they are (See Ibra).

It's not like we have turned into a club who brings in a manager that brings a style and attitude totally contradicting what we stand for on and off the field (Mou/Madrid) to win more games.

Once that hapens then people should start writing these articles.

Why are people saying "return to the norm"?

Nothing has changed, Barca had youth players 20 years ago, 10 years ago and today.

The difference is Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets of recent times was Gabri, Sergi and Alberlardo previously.

And I can only laugh at the notion of "luck" in having Xavi, Iniesta and so on..its not luck, its called hard work, coaching and talent.