BBZ8800
Senior Member
Sorry if something was offensive.
About Grimaldo or other youngsters, I still believe in Lucho's and other youth coach's opinion.
Also, about La Masia, try to take some number into the account:
-- La Masia works better in producing Barca's quality of midfielders than defenders and attackers
Since 2000 to 2015:
CB: Puyol (but he is a product of late 90's also), Oleguer, Pique
Fullbacks: - zero, except Gabri as a squad player
Midfielders: Xavi, Iniesta, Motta, Busquets, Fabregas, Thiago, Rafinha, Roberto
Attackers: Messi the one and only, Pedro
(I hope I haven't forgot anyone)
I know, someone may reply now:
= that is all history, it doesn't matter today etc etc
But as you can see, we aren't too successful in producing defenders, full backs and attackers.
It seems that La Masia works the best with midfielders and that "our" youth academy has the most luck with midfielders and with integrating them into our legendary 433 formation.
About fullbacks, as you can see, we haven't produced a single fullback for the last 20 years.
I have no idea whether our youth academy relies too much on passing, technique and similar skills and too less on defending.
But the pattern is repeating all the time.
Even now, with Lucho, he is giving chances to Gumbau, Samper, Kaptoum, aka midfielders.
CBs get much less chances. And when was the last time when some fullback (except Montoya was given some chances)?
For a fullback to make it at Barca, he would probably have to be awesome in Bteam.
Grimaldo was good in attack and pretty poor to average in defense, for years.
Also, imo, our board and coaches have some "philosophy" and they are trying to work in patterns in some areas.
For example, during 90s we relied on Dutch players because they naturally play the same type of football as we do.
But, it is hard to explain, but the history has shown that something is wrong "mentally" with Dutch players.
It seems that they aren't "natural born winners".
They play awesome, but too often they seem to "break" in semis, finals etc, both in clubs and in national teams.
So, there were some talks about that in 2003 and 2004, and Laporta, Txiki and Rijkaard decided to stop buying Dutch players anymore and turn to Brasilian and Argentinians who seemed to be better under pressure and in biggest matches.
It worked out well, and as you see, except Gio V Bronckhorst from that era, we never bought a Dutch player since then, and we won the highest amount of trophies in our history.
I don't believe that it was just a voodoo, magic or something similar.
What I am trying to say:
= the board probably has "a recipe" for success:
1. buy 1-2 attackers worth 100 Millions and build a team around them
2. buy some world class CMs, and play some kids from La Masia, because our midfielders usually fit well to the team
3. and about defenders, fullbacks and GKs=unless you have a world class prospect, just buy some cheaper La liga proven defenders and fullbacks and that's it
For the end, yes, every player is unique, but as much as most of you hate maths, history, patterns and similar, coaches and the staff have seen 1000s of talents over the years.
They can spot the talent/or an average player much easier than majority of us (unless if it is a world class player like Messi).
Of course, sometimes a case like Gumbau happens, but imo, majority of posters are too harsh about the board:
-- how they are killing La Masia
-- how they are not competent
-- how we are losing so many world class talents etc
(But in the end, Montoya, Tello, Deulofeu, Adama, none of them till now proved that the board made a mistake with not giving them chances.
Halil is currently the only player who has some chances.)
So, the board is bad, the board doesn't understand football, and fast forward 5 years, and then it turns out that a majority of our rejects were miles from Barca's standard.
** Again, sorry if I said anything offensive in previous post.
