FC Barcelona B (Barça Atlètic)

Joan

Well-known member
Looks like there will be some changes over the next few days.

Rivera has La Liga experience so he could help us. Would be also nice to have a buy option but maybe we can buy him in summer if he'll convince. His contract with Eibar runs up in 2019 and IIRC his release clause is around 8M.

He's been useful for Eibar. Don't know why are they loaning him?

He's a defensive midfielder, how should his coming effect Oriol's minutes?

Valverde has recently said that he's looking at Arnaiz, Alena and Oriol as players who could help the first team. Might that mean that he's gonna be used as Busquets' substitute?

Interesting signings, looking forward to it.
 

Messi983

Senior Member
He's been useful for Eibar. Don't know why are they loaning him?

He has only played around 240 minutes this season in La Liga and he was also injured for around a month. Dani Garcia and Joan Jordan are starters in midfield with Escalante also ahead of Rivera. And now they've also signed Pape Diop from Espanyol. Mendilibar just prefers experienced players (IIRC Eibar has 2nd oldest team in the league). That's why I think they would maybe be willing to sell Rivera in summer if he'll convince us in his loan spell and we'll decide to pursue him. His contract expires in 2019 so this summer is the last chance for Eibar to get something for him.

I've also read that Eibar apparently wants to include an option on Ruiz De Galarreta in negotiations for Rivera because they see him as a possible replacement for Dani Garcia whose contract is also running up and will most likely leave on a free transfer with Valencia, Bilbao and some other La Liga clubs interested. I like RdG but he'll be 25 at the start of next season so I don't think he has longterm future with us but if we can arrange a RdG+money (let's say about 5-6M assuming that Rivera's clause is about 8M which I'm not really sure about but I think I've read about that last summer) = Rivera deal then we should consider that. But of course Rivera will first have to prove himself in next 6 months with Barça B.

I know most people will say - we have Oriol B., why do we need another outsider to take away his minutes? I like Oriol and think he could have a first team future but if he's really as good as most people think he shouldn't be affraid of Rivera and should still keep his starting spot (or at least get enough playing time to develop) even if he'll have to compete against a player who is only 18 months older but has already played around 1000 minutes in La Liga.

I believe Busquets still has at least 2-3 great seasons in front of him but we should start looking for his longterm replacement now if we don't want to pay 80 or 100m for one when Busi will decline and we'll desperately need someone to replace him (like it happened with Iniesta and Coutinho now). We should spray the risk instead of putting all eggs in one basket. I think we did that mistake with Asensio when we thought we already have a future at winger position set with Deulofeu, Adama and Halilovic so we decided against signing him. Welp, that worked out great, didn't it? As I said a few days ago I don't think Asensio will really become a worldclass player and it's also questionable how he'd developed here sitting behind MSN most of the times but it's clear by now he's far more talented and more likely to make a great career than any of the afforementioned three of our (former) top talents so missing out on him for just 3m was a big mistake we shouldn't repeat.

We shouldn't assume that we already have a longterm replacement for Busi in Oriol. Maybe we have but we won't know until he can prove that and it will probably take a few seasons before he'll get enough first team minutes to fairly evaluate if it's really possible he takes over for Busi one day. In the meantime we shouldn't stop looking for other possible options and if we can get Rivera for 6-8m, Fabian Ruiz for 15m (though he's playing as CM for Betis I think he could also play DM for us),... then we should use those opportunities. Get them under club control and see how they'll develop over the next 2-3 years. I'd rather invest 30-40m into 3 or 4 players and hope at least one of them will work out then pay 40m for one player that we also have no guarantee will really succeed. With Busquets still playing at a high level this is the time to do "try-outs" for his successor and see who will stick. If none will then we can still go out and pay 80 or 100m for whoever will consider can be his future replacement. Though to be fair I think replacing Busi will be our toughest task (I won't talk about replacing Messi because there is no single player that could ever replace him and we'll just have to adapt as a team to play without him when he'll leave.)

Of course Rivera and Ruiz are just examples. If we can find 2-3 players who we believe have better potential/chances to make it into our best XI (or at least be part of the first team) someday and we can get them for similar prices mentioned above then we should bring those players when possible.

I know there won't be a place and time for developing Ruiz, Rivera and Oriol in our first team at the same time so loan them out (or in Oriol's case keep him at B team for another season as he's still only 18 but if Barça B will be relegated then we should also think about a loan as I don't think he'll really improve in Segunda B) and see how they'll do and then re-evaluate things after a season or two. I know people hate loans because most of our loanees have failed but that's mostly their fault. If a player should be considered good enough to potentially play at Barça he should absolutely be able to get through adversity (coaching changes, different formations,...) and establish himself as a starter in smaller club. In some cases (like Ruiz) we could loan him back to his current club where he's already a starter so we'll know he'd play enough.

I've already said that before and while I think overall we are improving in the market there are still many options we clearly don't use as much (or not at all) as we should imo. One of them is signing players with low buyout clauses in La Liga (or even Segunda as we did with Arnaiz) - anything under 15m can really be considered as low in these times and even top talents like Ceballos have/had their clauses set at those figures and for less proven players clauses are usually even lower - and leave them on loan at their current club for a year or even two if they are young enough and we think that would help their development. We usually want to bring them to Barça B. In general there is nothing wrong with that approach as we want them to adapt to our style (though with Gerard as B team coach that's not really the case anymore) but if players are already getting some first team minutes with their La Liga teams then they probably consider going back to Segunda Division as a step backwards in their careers and some players probably rejected our approach because of that. Don't know if we've really missed out on anyone "special" because of that but I think we should be more flexible and adapt to players (that we want to buy) wishes more if that means we have better chances to get them.

Other players like Rivera who have so far failed to get regular minutes at their club should be loaned to another club if they wouldn't make it to our first team immediately (which is probably expected) and if we'd feel they need to play at higher level than Barça B to develop.

So we shouldn't look at players brought from the outside to Barça B only as an obstacle for our own youngsters. If Oriol, Alena, Cucu,... are good enough they will continue to play indepenent on who we bring from the outside. If/when they will arrive to the first team they will also have to compete for their minutes against players far better and more experienced than those in B team. If they are good enough they will stay for a season, two or maybe more, if not there will be an opportunity for someone else. But we should try to bring as much talent to the club as possible. To the first team, to Barça B and all the way down through La Masia younger selections. If in the end 20 years old Rivera who we've bought for 8m from Eibar will have a better longterm future with us than 18 years old Oriol who has made it through our youth system then so be it. Longterm goal should always be to have the best available players in the first team while also staying financially responsible as there is no way we can continue to pay 100m+ for only established WC players or world's biggest talents. We'll have to find a few more diamonds in the rough on our way.

It's worth it even if we "only" find someone like Arnaiz for 3m who could maybe only be good enough to be a squad player for a year or two until we find someone better for his role but at the same time his presence (along with some other first team players too of course) could also help us to sell deadweight like Deulofeu or Vidal as he can possibly fill into their role at least as good as they did (and I think better) while also allow us to lower our wages. But ultimate goal should of course be to also find some cheap (future) starters like we did with MATS and Umtiti.
 

Joan

Well-known member
He has only played around 240 minutes this season in La Liga and he was also injured for around a month. Dani Garcia and Joan Jordan are starters in midfield with Escalante also ahead of Rivera. And now they've also signed Pape Diop from Espanyol. Mendilibar just prefers experienced players (IIRC Eibar has 2nd oldest team in the league). That's why I think they would maybe be willing to sell Rivera in summer if he'll convince us in his loan spell and we'll decide to pursue him. His contract expires in 2019 so this summer is the last chance for Eibar to get something for him.
Didn't know they had that many defensive midfielders. Always thought Eibar should try selling the developed youngsters (considering their finances) but obviously estimated their plans poorly.
Looks like we'll have an option to buy after all so no point in continuing.
I know most people will say - we have Oriol B., why do we need another outsider to take away his minutes? I like Oriol and think he could have a first team future but if he's really as good as most people think he shouldn't be affraid of Rivera and should still keep his starting spot (or at least get enough playing time to develop) even if he'll have to compete against a player who is only 18 months older but has already played around 1000 minutes in La Liga.
Have to say that I completely agree on this one and that earlier bringing Oriol into it wasn't meant to oppose the transfer.
Buying players for cheap is nowadays the best transfer policy as you can't rely on having extraordinary players coming through youth ranks every generation.
Barca B (and earlier ranks) needs to be as competitive as possible. It's crucial for the club to grow and resist the modern market.
I believe Busquets still has at least 2-3 great seasons in front of him but we should start looking for his longterm replacement now if we don't want to pay 80 or 100m for one when Busi will decline and we'll desperately need someone to replace him (like it happened with Iniesta and Coutinho now). We should spray the risk instead of putting all eggs in one basket. I think we did that mistake with Asensio when we thought we already have a future at winger position set with Deulofeu, Adama, and Halilovic so we decided against signing him. Welp, that worked out great, didn't it? As I said a few days ago I don't think Asensio will really become a worldclass player and it's also questionable how he'd developed here sitting behind MSN most of the times but it's clear by now he's far more talented and more likely to make a great career than any of the afforementioned three of our (former) top talents so missing out on him for just 3m was a big mistake we shouldn't repeat.
I believe Asensio has potential to become one of the best at his position. Think that his transfer was a huge miss.
One of the most important things is to sell the majority of mediocre bench players from the first team and reduce the squad. That way, some of our starters could be rested in easier games by introducing younger talents who perform in the lower league.
I think that the most important for a youngster is to play as often as possible. It's good that the players up to a certain age can simultaneously play for the first and the lower team. Providing Asensio with all the cameos he'd had over the years while he still playing with the B team, it certainly wouldn't hurt his development.
That should be a way to go and a way to keep young targets interested but we first need to show them they can succeed here. Mboula and many others said that the club didn't trust its own youngsters and we need to show that it is not true.

Great post :thumbsup:
 

khaled_a_d

Senior Member
He has only played around 240 minutes this season in La Liga and he was also injured for around a month. Dani Garcia and Joan Jordan are starters in midfield with Escalante also ahead of Rivera. And now they've also signed Pape Diop from Espanyol. Mendilibar just prefers experienced players (IIRC Eibar has 2nd oldest team in the league). That's why I think they would maybe be willing to sell Rivera in summer if he'll convince us in his loan spell and we'll decide to pursue him. His contract expires in 2019 so this summer is the last chance for Eibar to get something for him.

You did a BBZ here, I'm impressed

I know most people will say - we have Oriol B., why do we need another outsider to take away his minutes? I like Oriol and think he could have a first team future but if he's really as good as most people think he shouldn't be affraid of Rivera and should still keep his starting spot (or at least get enough playing time to develop) even if he'll have to compete against a player who is only 18 months older but has already played around 1000 minutes in La Liga.

I believe Busquets still has at least 2-3 great seasons in front of him but we should start looking for his longterm replacement now if we don't want to pay 80 or 100m for one when Busi will decline and we'll desperately need someone to replace him (like it happened with Iniesta and Coutinho now). We should spray the risk instead of putting all eggs in one basket. I think we did that mistake with Asensio when we thought we already have a future at winger position set with Deulofeu, Adama and Halilovic so we decided against signing him. Welp, that worked out great, didn't it? As I said a few days ago I don't think Asensio will really become a worldclass player and it's also questionable how he'd developed here sitting behind MSN most of the times but it's clear by now he's far more talented and more likely to make a great career than any of the afforementioned three of our (former) top talents so missing out on him for just 3m was a big mistake we shouldn't repeat.

If we believe Oriol is great, why we should pay 8m for Rivera? Unlike Rivera Asensio was already starter and less of a risk tbf, and we would have been able to let him grow outside of Barca and see what we have with our talents.
This is what I hate about Barca B philosophy, every talent has to pass on Barca B when we could spread it on many clubs. The whole "let all the talent compete against each other" has been proven wrong for few seasons now, since its start La Masia has declined (even if it is one of many factors"

As for the senior Busquets, I think you are underestimating him, I would say he has at least 4 seasons as a starter here. His style of pay will allow him to last much longer than rest of our midfielders. You don't start looking for a replacement that early, because if you found one you will fail to develop or retain him.
Surely if you find a superb talent you would take him anyway, question is Rivera that type of talent? He just look like a typical signing to strengthen Barca B for fight against relegation, nothing wrong in that as long as we don't pay 8M for it

I know there won't be a place and time for developing Ruiz, Rivera and Oriol in our first team at the same time so loan them out (or in Oriol's case keep him at B team for another season as he's still only 18 but if Barça B will be relegated then we should also think about a loan as I don't think he'll really improve in Segunda B) and see how they'll do and then re-evaluate things after a season or two. I know people hate loans because most of our loanees have failed but that's mostly their fault. If a player should be considered good enough to potentially play at Barça he should absolutely be able to get through adversity (coaching changes, different formations,...) and establish himself as a starter in smaller club. In some cases (like Ruiz) we could loan him back to his current club where he's already a starter so we'll know he'd play enough.

B teams for almost all Liga clubs has developed talents better in Segunda B than Segunda A, I still see a valid argument against it, Segunda A is good when you loan a player their to play with seniors and not for a team full of young players

=========

I mean sure I would love we always look for young talents, we are already doing that with Arnaiz, RDG & Cuenca, but it should always calculated risk, under 15M shouldn't be the signings of B team players. we can't have a budgut of 40M signings for that team.
 

Messi983

Senior Member
[MENTION=11668]khaled_a_d[/MENTION] : I respect your opinion and often agree with you but I think you totally missed a lot of points I was trying to make.


You did a BBZ here, I'm impressed

:)

BBZ goes into extremes too much but I think he is right that not every young talent people expect to become great will actually become great or at least good enough to be a squad player. Success rate is usually pretty low when signing unproven players and that's why I think spraying the risk is better than putting all eggs in one basket.

If we believe Oriol is great, why we should pay 8m for Rivera?

Because even if we believe Oriol is a great talent (which I think he is), there is no guarantee that he will actually develop into a great player and become first team member, let alone a starter one day. So having more options/players improves our chances that one of them will actually make it in our first team.

8m is not much today and it's possible we could get Rivera for even less. If he'll convince during his loan then I wouldn't mind using our buy option. Also, keep in mind that 8m clause is just a speculation from my side and it's not 100% his clause is really 8m. It could also be lower or even higher. What is officialy confirmed is that we have a buy option for Rivera but I haven't seen reported anywhere how much that option is. It could be equal to his release clause or maybe lower if Eibar doesn't count on Rivera longterm and want to just cash on him.

This is what I hate about Barca B philosophy, every talent has to pass on Barca B when we could spread it on many clubs. The whole "let all the talent compete against each other" has been proven wrong for few seasons now, since its start La Masia has declined (even if it is one of many factors"

Well, I've mentioned that. I've said we should use buy and loan option more instead of always bringing players to Barça B. I also didn't said we should keep Rivera and Oriol B. both in B team for a long time to compete against each other. My point was just that it's nothing wrong if we bring competition for Oriol this season and if Rivera will prove to be a better player and help out the team more then he'll probably play more in next 5 months.

I expect him and Oriol will share playing time but IF Rivera will show enough to convince the club he could have a first team future (not now but maybe in 2-3 years) then buying him for cheap and loaning him out would make sense. Or in case Oriol would be promoted to the first team in summer (which seems unlikely right now but stranger things have happened) we could also buy and actually keep Rivera for one season as a starter in Barça B.

As for the senior Busquets, I think you are underestimating him, I would say he has at least 4 seasons as a starter here. His style of pay will allow him to last much longer than rest of our midfielders. You don't start looking for a replacement that early, because if you found one you will fail to develop or retain him.

Maybe I am and Busi will play on a high level for 4 or 5 more seasons but I don't believe it's too early to start looking for his replacement. We have to be prepared when his decline will start or we'll again have to pay big money to get his replacement like we had to do with Coutinho to replace Iniesta because we didn't address that need earlier. Maybe we'll eventually have to pay big money for Busi replacement anyway but if we start to look now and try out different players there are more chances one of them could actually be good enough to potentially replace Busi one day.

Also, we currently don't have a clear substitute for him in first team. Surely there are players like Rakitic and Roberto who could fill in and do a good job when needed but they are currently starters at other positions. We also have Samper on loan but his future at the club is in the air after recent injury (and was even before that tbf). Even if Busquets will stay a starter for 4 more years I think he'll need to get more rest every season so there could be enough opportunities for other players to show if we can count on them longterm.


Surely if you find a superb talent you would take him anyway, question is Rivera that type of talent? He just look like a typical signing to strengthen Barca B for fight against relegation, nothing wrong in that as long as we don't pay 8M for it

Again, I'm not saying we should absolutely buy him for 8m. I don't know how good Rivera really is but he'll have next 5 months to prove himself. IF he'll show enough to convince the club to use his buy option then I'm ok with that. If not then we'll continue to look.

B teams for almost all Liga clubs has developed talents better in Segunda B than Segunda A, I still see a valid argument against it, Segunda A is good when you loan a player their to play with seniors and not for a team full of young players

While I agree with your overall point I still think players learn more playing against better opponents constantly so it's better for Barça B to stay in Segunda.

I mean sure I would love we always look for young talents, we are already doing that with Arnaiz, RDG & Cuenca, but it should always calculated risk, under 15M shouldn't be the signings of B team players. we can't have a budgut of 40M signings for that team.

Again you've missed my point. :) I didn't say we should spend 40m at once for Barça B signings. I was just saying that when talking about Busquets's possible longterm replacement I would prefer to spend 30-40m on 3, 4 or 5 players over the next few years and try them out to see if one of them will turn out to be good enough. Not all of them would be bought with intention to play at Barça B.

My plan would be to bring one or two players to Barça B, possibly on loan with buy option so they would first have to prove themselves before we invest more money in them (we did that with Rivera). Let's say total costs for those players would be around 8-10m.

Then buy one for the first team for around 15-20m but it would be good if that player would be versatile enough to also play as CM/CB or another position so he'd have more chances to get regular playing time. I've mentioned Fabian Ruiz who I think could play both DM and CM here but of course there are other options as well.

And at last, bring another player or two and send them on loan, possibly even to their current clubs if they are already established players there. Again total cost here would be around 10m.

That way we would spend around 40m in 2-3 years looking for Busquets replacement. You think that's too much? With Busi still in his top form for now we still have a luxury to make these kind of "experiments" and I think it's better than buy just one player for 40m and then he'll turn out to be the next Gomes (you probably know that I actually like him but it's clear he'll never be our starter and most likely don't even have a future at Barça beyond this summer).

If at least one of those players will turn out to be good enough to be a squad player here (for which we'd have to pay 40m) then we could say experiment was successful. If we are lucky and get a future starter/Busi replacement out of those 4-5 players then we'd save 30-40m as we would have to pay 70-80m (and possibly even more with the market probably going crazier every year) to buy a proven starter after Busi (but again, even paying 70-80m doesn't guarantee that player would really be good enough for us). And if we are extremely lucky and two of those players will have a future in Barça (one as as starter and other as his backup) then we'd probably save more than 100m.

Although after buying Semedo, Dembele and Coutinho our future looks brighter than it did 6 months ago there are still positions (mainly CM and versatile forward - LW/ST) where we'll need player(s) able to make more instant impact so we'll probably invest bigger money into those positions this and next summer. Probably Griezmann and whoever we'll buy for a CM position after we'll sell most of current midfielders.

But I think for now DM is a position where we can afford to gamble with those low risk/possible high reward type of signings for the next 2 years just like we could take a risk with Mina because Pique still has a few good years in him and we have a starter at other CB position set longterm in Umtiti.


ok, it's time to stop or I'll really turn into BBZ. ;)
 

khaled_a_d

Senior Member
[MENTION=11668]khaled_a_d[/MENTION] : I respect your opinion and often agree with you but I think you totally missed a lot of points I was trying to make.

:)

BBZ goes into extremes too much but I think he is right that not every young talent people expect to become great will actually become great or at least good enough to be a squad player. Success rate is usually pretty low when signing unproven players and that's why I think spraying the risk is better than putting all eggs in one basket.

It is mutual mate :cheers:
And by BBZ I meant writing a long essay , something he has been the expert of it in this forum for sure, I agree and disagree with a lot of things he says but surely I have a lot of respect to him.

[MENTION=11668]Because even if we believe Oriol is a great talent (which I think he is), there is no guarantee that he will actually develop into a great player and become first team member, let alone a starter one day. So having more options/players improves our chances that one of them will actually make it in our first team.

8m is not much today and it's possible we could get Rivera for even less. If he'll convince during his loan then I wouldn't mind using our buy option. Also, keep in mind that 8m clause is just a speculation from my side and it's not 100% his clause is really 8m. It could also be lower or even higher. What is officialy confirmed is that we have a buy option for Rivera but I haven't seen reported anywhere how much that option is. It could be equal to his release clause or maybe lower if Eibar doesn't count on Rivera longterm and want to just cash on him.

I expect him and Oriol will share playing time but IF Rivera will show enough to convince the club he could have a first team future (not now but maybe in 2-3 years) then buying him for cheap and loaning him out would make sense. Or in case Oriol would be promoted to the first team in summer (which seems unlikely right now but stranger things have happened) we could also buy and actually keep Rivera for one season as a starter in Barça B.

Maybe I am and Busi will play on a high level for 4 or 5 more seasons but I don't believe it's too early to start looking for his replacement. We have to be prepared when his decline will start or we'll again have to pay big money to get his replacement like we had to do with Coutinho to replace Iniesta because we didn't address that need earlier. Maybe we'll eventually have to pay big money for Busi replacement anyway but if we start to look now and try out different players there are more chances one of them could actually be good enough to potentially replace Busi one day.

Again, I'm not saying we should absolutely buy him for 8m. I don't know how good Rivera really is but he'll have next 5 months to prove himself. IF he'll show enough to convince the club to use his buy option then I'm ok with that. If not then we'll continue to look.
While I agree with your overall point I still think players learn more playing against better opponents constantly so it's better for Barça B to stay in Segunda.

-Look, I am not really disagreeing with you here, but I think the club at the end of the day need to be selective, we have bought many Barca B players in 2014, we bought Halilovic and Gumbau so at the end we decided that this is enough and Asensio isn't needed. Huge mistake as you said, I don't think the club will be capable of getting too many of those and we have to be selective, I am not sure Rivera will be that kind of player that will have first team future considering his profile tbh. For that I am against loading the team with expensive (by Barca B standards) players in hope to find one. I think we are doing fine job atm but we need to expand the sign + loan deals

-If we ding an elite talent to replace Busquets I am all for going after it, but again I believe you will never be able to replace a player by signing someone 4 years ahead. RM has got Isco too early IMO and while he is now a great player I think he didn't reach his full potential there and would have been much better if he was signed 2 years later, well they might haven't got him 2 years later. Isco will probably never replace Cr7 or Modric for example, but he wasn't signed to replace either as he was signed because he was an elite talent. I am all for signing players for such purpose, but it is way too early to "target" Busquets replacement
 

defyqa

New member
Messi983 actually makes some fine arguments, with BBZ it's just made up arbitrary numbers. Wish he would actually analyze stuff and provide correct numbers. :)
 

BarcaJack

New member
Maybe it's too early to think about Busquets' replacement, but I think Barca B should pay some attention to their passing game now. When the B team is playing like a bunch of headless chicken (I'm exaggerating but you know what I mean), no midfield talent can develop.
BTW where are our wingers? We used to have Tello Cuenca etc but now we have none. Lee cannot succeed in senior levels, unfortunately, but then what? No one at all?
 

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