I think many people take the entire homegrown thing the wrong way. Canteranos don't just come knocking at the first team's door already being world class players like the likes of Iniesta or Busquets are now. They are kids with potential, and that potential needs to be recognized, nurtured and given the right circumstances to evolve. The chances that they are given by the first team coach is what makes them or breaks them. If Pep and the guys before him had the same politics in regard to canteranos that Tito and Tata had, I bet anything that our now world famous canteranos like Messi, Iniesta, Busquets etc. wouldn't be the players they are today. It's not that the likes of Montoya and Bartra are that much behind what our now senior players were at their age, it's also that the coach and the chances they're given under particular circumstances don't have the same effect on them. It takes balls and brains for a coach to give a young player a chance ahead of a senior player, but that's part of the job. And the reason why it's not happening anymore is not just about the canterano situation, it's a wider problem that's been happening here for quite a while now.
We don't see players chosen based on merit, but based on their name. When's the last time you saw a Barca player subbed out because he was having a bad game? This is a completely usual thing in football. But it doesn't happen in Barca anymore. Anything that happens here now is automatic. Automatic lineups, automatic substitution choices, automatic substitution timing, nothing that is based on the situation and the performance. This team needs a huge kick in the ass and a system that will use whatever works best for any particular situation. Regardless of whether the name is Busquets or Toure, Montoya or Alves, Fabregas or Roberto, Bartra or Mascherano or whatever else...
