FC Barcelona B (Barça Atlètic)

[JamDav1982]

See, this is perfect example of you not knowing the facts...Check out the Juvenil A squad ages, they are U17, not U19...Most Nextgen sides they faced in the competition had a good dose of 20 year olds but were otherwise ALWAYS older than Juvenil A...Moreover, all the club youth teams play in tourneys where they are often younger than their competition...It's part of the club's philosophy in developing players

Your fixated on the competition in Segunda when all I've ever said is that the age & talent cannot be used as an excuse by Eusebio...His predecessors did better than him, even against Segunda competition, with less money, less transfers & younger players...To boot, those teams also produced 1st team players...You've yet to make one valid point in Eusebio's favor

Then you diverge even further by comparing the coaching resumes of 1st team clubs to that of a youth team coach at Barcelona...At Barcelona, they are weaning talent to prepare for professional football and life...That is what distinguishes a B team coach, they need to be preparing talent for the professional level while maintaining Barcelona's philosophy of play...The B team under Eusebio does not play like a Barcelona side

And yes, you did point out there was a talent drain despite later backtracking...Eusebio had talent at his disposal along with more transfers & money than any of his predecessors...Yet still can't manage to win more than 34% of his matches or produce 1st team players...So not sure what his purpose is at the club apart from being a stooge

The b team has been producing first team players, probably more have stepped up in the last 2/3 years than that same time period before hand.

There is no way that Barcelona b have as good a squad as they did under Luis Enrique either.

 

[The Observer]

Yet still can't manage to [...] produce 1st team players...

Bold assumption. There used to be much darker times when the likes of Xavi, Valdes, Puyol, Messi, Iniesta came through. None of them had that perfect platform where they got perfectly nurtured in the second division to have it as comfortable as possible before making the transition to the first team. Neither do hundreds and thousands of talents world wide. Barca is actually one of the few teams that benefits from a youth team playing second division football.

You seem to have a personal agenda against Eusebio, for whatever reasons, if you really blame him for destroying all those crown jewels who would be with the first time by now if it weren't just for him. When the reality is that the vast majority is simply not good enough or plays in already stacked positions. Thiago left because he didn't get enough playing time. What chances do talents like Illie or Espinosa have? Where do you see Rafinha fitting in with Iniesta and Fabregas still only 29 and 26? Tello will soon leave because of Neymar. Getting into Barca's first team isn't a child's play. You have to be really really special and still have some luck with the right circumstances. Since Iniesta's promotion in 2002 until Eusebio's promotion in 2011, only Busquets, Pique and Pedro really made it at Barca from the youth ranks. Possibly Fabregas if we want to pretend that 8 years under Wenger didn't make him the player that he is today. So 3 - 4 players in 9 years before Eusebio. Well ...

 

[FCBarca]

The proof as they say is in the pudding...No developed 1st team players, no Barcelona style and poor performances...In what organization let alone club that aspires to a particular philosophy to achieve success would that be acceptable?...You've failed to build your own argument for Eusebio yet accuse me of some agenda against the person and continue to go on some other tangent...Bad is bad, it's not personal...This is Barcelona, coaches would never survive in this age with that sort of track record yet inexplicably he continues...It defies logic

 

[The Observer]

I'm not here to big up Eusebio. I'm merely pointing out more obvious explanations for the mentioned flaws ("poor results", "not developing players" - which I disagree with by the way) than "Eusebio sucks". Playing devil's advocate so to say. Everyone can have his own opinion on the matter of course. For you he sucks and should be sacked, for me he gets the benefit of the doubt and it's normal that a youth team under the afromentioned circumstances will struggle and that it isn't Eusebio's fault that in the 2 years he has been coaching Barca B, no youth player has broken into a team that is full of top 3 players in every single position. We can leave it at that I guess since no new viewpoint will be expressed.

 

[JamDav1982]

The proof as they say is in the pudding...No developed 1st team players, no Barcelona style and poor performances...In what organization let alone club that aspires to a particular philosophy to achieve success would that be acceptable?...You've failed to build your own argument for Eusebio yet accuse me of some agenda against the person and continue to go on some other tangent...Bad is bad, it's not personal...This is Barcelona, coaches would never survive in this age with that sort of track record yet inexplicably he continues...It defies logic

What do you mean by 'no developed first team players'?

More player in the squad from the b team than in previous years.

Do you aknowledge that the current b team is younger than the on under Luis Enrique and the general standard of players is not as high?

 

[DonAndres]

I'm not here to big up Eusebio. I'm merely pointing out more obvious explanations for the mentioned flaws ("poor results", "not developing players" - which I disagree with by the way) than "Eusebio sucks". Playing devil's advocate so to say. Everyone can have his own opinion on the matter of course. For you he sucks and should be sacked, for me he gets the benefit of the doubt and it's normal that a youth team under the afromentioned circumstances will struggle and that it isn't Eusebio's fault that in the 2 years he has been coaching Barca B, no youth player has broken into a team that is full of top 3 players in every single position. We can leave it at that I guess since no new viewpoint will be expressed.

Well in playing devil's advocate you've forgotten to mention even one thing that Eusebio has done well in his time here. He hasn't implemented any system that got the best out of our players or been a tactical wizard. He's actually veered off from the Barca philosophy entirely with the way the team plays. You can't link the development of any of our star prospects to what he has done for them. He's no great man manager or motivator as far as I've seen. You've claimed that he "does not lack coaching talent" but not once proven that he has any. Whatever mishaps in the B team that you're claiming "aren't that bad" or "expectable due to the difficulty of the division" are despite Eusebio, not lessened or eased because of him. I'd like to see you name one positive quality that he's added in his time as Barca B coach, not just make deflective defenses on whatever he's accused for.

Your entire rationale illustrates the job of being B team coach as so crushingly difficult that it can come with no expectations for anything but failure, and that doing a mediocre job can be excused. Not once has Eusebio made this team look like that of FC Barcelona, he's never given a spark of hope or implemented any positive aspect that he's responsible for, nor has he given any reason to keep him around. Once again I'd like to reiterate that deflecting accusations is nothing but a weak way to try and make an argument for the opposite perspective when he's shown nothing to deserve one.

 

[JamDav1982]

Well in playing devil's advocate you've forgotten to mention even one thing that Eusebio has done well in his time here. He hasn't implemented any system that got the best out of our players or been a tactical wizard. He's actually veered off from the Barca philosophy entirely with the way the team plays. You can't link the development of any of our star prospects to what he has done for them. He's no great man manager or motivator as far as I've seen. You've claimed that he "does not lack coaching talent" but not once proven that he has any. Whatever mishaps in the B team that you're claiming "aren't that bad" or "expectable due to the difficulty of the division" are despite Eusebio, not lessened or eased because of him. I'd like to see you name one positive quality that he's added in his time as Barca B coach, not just make deflective defenses on whatever he's accused for.

Your entire rationale illustrates the job of being B team coach as so crushingly difficult that it can come with no expectations for anything but failure, and that doing a mediocre job can be excused. Not once has Eusebio made this team look like that of FC Barcelona, he's never given a spark of hope or implemented any positive aspect that he's responsible for, nor has he given any reason to keep him around. Once again I'd like to reiterate that deflecting accusations is nothing but a weak way to try and make an argument for the opposite perspective when he's shown nothing to deserve one.

I would say an argument for Eusebio not being a failure are the number of players coming from the b team into the first team squad these past few years. Players like Tello and Cuenca have developed under him far quicker than was expected. C

Can you name one player that has not developed under him as expected?

The squad he has at the moment and last season is younger and not as talented as the one under Luis Enrique, it is unfair to compare the two so closely.

 

[The Observer]

I've watched the mini Clasico this season and it was 100 % "Barca style" and a very good game from Barca B. If they can't sustain that kind of form and impose themselves against older and better teams, it might not be the coach's fault but the players simply not being good enough yet to play that way against any team. Swansea have a clear playing style. You don't expect them to impose their style on Barca though. Extreme example but you get the point. In Spain every team can pass and press. Not just Barca B.

I disagree that he didn't get the best out of his players. Luis Alberto and Deulofeu were phenomenal under him. Club decided not to buy Alberto so Liverpool did and Deulofeu was loaned to Everton. Sergi Roberto looked impressive throughout the preseason this year. He looks completely ready for first team football. I think it was Sporting Gijon's president who said he is the next Iniesta and that they want him. Xavi, Iniesta and Fabregas are holding him back at this point, nothing else. Rafinha is doing well in the Primera for Celta from what I can see. Bartra was voted best defender in the Segunda under Eusebio. Grimaldo looked great until injury. Real Sociedad, a CL club, desperately wanted JdS.

Barca B had the second best offense in Segunda last season. Even better than Villarreal who are sitting 4th in the Primera right now. What killed them was the defense. Which is kinda normal for a very young team that is trying to dominate possession and play high up the pitch. Even the first team struggles heavily in that department. Comes with the philosophy. The club has never been famous for producing defensive talent either. Some technical staff member from the first team said this season that Barca don't do any defensive training. They would just know "we have to ball" or "we recover the ball".

You can't expect a B team coach in the second division to be a "tactical wizard". Elite coaches don't coach B teams in the second division and if they do, they won't do it for too long.

 

[DonAndres]

I've watched the mini Clasico this season and it was 100 % "Barca style" and a very good game from Barca B. If they can't sustain that kind of form and impose themselves against older and better teams, it might not be the coach's fault but the players simply not being good enough yet to play that way against any team. Swansea have a clear playing style. You don't expect them to impose their style on Barca though. Extreme example but you get the point. In Spain every team can pass and press. Not just Barca B.

I disagree that he didn't get the best out of his players. Luis Alberto and Deulofeu were phenomenal under him. Club decided not to buy Alberto so Liverpool did and Deulofeu was loaned to Everton. Sergi Roberto looked impressive throughout the preseason this year. He looks completely ready for first team football. I think it was Sporting Gijon's president who said he is the next Iniesta and that they want him. Xavi, Iniesta and Fabregas are holding him back at this point, nothing else. Rafinha is doing well in the Primera for Celta from what I can see. Bartra was voted best defender in the Segunda under Eusebio. Grimaldo looked great until injury. Real Sociedad, a CL club, desperately wanted JdS.

Barca B had the second best offense in Segunda last season. Even better than Villarreal who are sitting 4th in the Primera right now. What killed them was the defense. Which is kinda normal for a very young team that is trying to dominate possession and play high up the pitch. Even the first team struggles heavily in that department. Comes with the philosophy. The club has never been famous for producing defensive talent either. Some technical staff member from the first team said this season that Barca don't do any defensive training. They would just know "we have to ball" or "we recover the ball".

You can't expect a B team coach in the second division to be a "tactical wizard". Elite coaches don't coach B teams in the second division and if they do, they won't do it for too long.

-No one is saying Barca B has to top the division, but it's just low standards to be satisfied with only performing against an extremely poor Castilla side. The aim is not just to be better than other B teams, but to be to the best of their ability which I'd say with full confidence that they are not doing right now.

-Alberto was a loan player, not someone Eusebio developed. Deulofeu was a one off case, a complete individual, his growth was completely in personal terms showing little coaches influence on his lack of team play, bad attitude, and inability to work within a system (there was no system to work in ffs). The fact that Deulofeu could be so flawed as a player and have so many obstacles yet still be our best goalscorer just speaks volumes to the amount of raw talent he has, not to how much he was nurtured by the coach. Roberto was piss poor with the B team last year when he played, yet shined in the pre-season, so I don't think it says much in Eusebio's favor. Grimaldo had his first season in the B team and showed the same ability as he had in previous years, bombing forward, as a defensive player he was pretty stagnated under Eusebio. Rafinha's growth is one of the few that could possibly be attributed to what Eusebio did since you could actually see that he went from disappointing to our best midfielder after having his role tweaked within the team. Any player that happened to do well while Eusebio was coach in 95% of cases was because they were that good themselves, he as a coach had no team system that nurtured their growth.

-The offensive success was down to the trio of Alberto, Rafinha, and Deulofeu. The rest of the team, both midfield and defense, lagged terribly behind. This years squad seems much more balanced yet still we're now just as bad in defense and much worse in attack. It shows that once again, the individuals are what account for the success and not Eusebio's coaching.

He doesn't have to be any sort of tactical innovator or genius, just adept. I mean we have no organization in defense, midfield, or attack. Players age doesn't account for that sort of thing. If he could create a stable and organized system for our defensive and attacking play and get our team working as a unit, all the players would be performing much better despite being young. It's not that they can't do it, because that sort of thing is simply down to him not being a quality coach. The midfield trio of Suarez-Espinosa-Samper has immense technical quality as individuals yet they look disjointed because of no coherence and unity in play, our attack relies on Roman being in the form he's been in and even then has collapsed in recent games, and our defense is just plain clueless as a group with only Masip to bail them out. I'd rather have a tactically astute coach like Luis Enrique coach the team for a short period of time than have a good-at-nothing coach like Eusebio there for long term. It's time to move on, the benefit of the doubt has been given to him and he's shown little from it.

 

[JamDav1982]

-No one is saying Barca B has to top the division, but it's just low standards to be satisfied with only performing against an extremely poor Castilla side. The aim is not just to be better than other B teams, but to be to the best of their ability which I'd say with full confidence that they are not doing right now.

-Alberto was a loan player, not someone Eusebio developed. Deulofeu was a one off case, a complete individual, his growth was completely in personal terms showing little coaches influence on his lack of team play, bad attitude, and inability to work within a system (there was no system to work in ffs). The fact that Deulofeu could be so flawed as a player and have so many obstacles yet still be our best goalscorer just speaks volumes to the amount of raw talent he has, not to how much he was nurtured by the coach. Roberto was piss poor with the B team last year when he played, yet shined in the pre-season, so I don't think it says much in Eusebio's favor. Grimaldo had his first season in the B team and showed the same ability as he had in previous years, bombing forward, as a defensive player he was pretty stagnated under Eusebio. Rafinha's growth is one of the few that could possibly be attributed to what Eusebio did since you could actually see that he went from disappointing to our best midfielder after having his role tweaked within the team. Any player that happened to do well while Eusebio was coach in 95% of cases was because they were that good themselves, he as a coach had no team system that nurtured their growth.

-The offensive success was down to the trio of Alberto, Rafinha, and Deulofeu. The rest of the team, both midfield and defense, lagged terribly behind. This years squad seems much more balanced yet still we're now just as bad in defense and much worse in attack. It shows that once again, the individuals are what account for the success and not Eusebio's coaching.

He doesn't have to be any sort of tactical innovator or genius, just adept. I mean we have no organization in defense, midfield, or attack. Players age doesn't account for that sort of thing. If he could create a stable and organized system for our defensive and attacking play and get our team working as a unit, all the players would be performing much better despite being young. It's not that they can't do it, because that sort of thing is simply down to him not being a quality coach. The midfield trio of Suarez-Espinosa-Samper has immense technical quality as individuals yet they look disjointed because of no coherence and unity in play, our attack relies on Roman being in the form he's been in and even then has collapsed in recent games, and our defense is just plain clueless as a group with only Masip to bail them out. I'd rather have a tactically astute coach like Luis Enrique coach the team for a short period of time than have a good-at-nothing coach like Eusebio there for long term. It's time to move on, the benefit of the doubt has been given to him and he's shown little from it.

It seems that any player that progressed under Luis Enrique and Guardiola it was all down to them and any player that has progressed under Eusebio it is down to the player.

Plenty of players improved in the b team under him - Tello, Cuenca, Deulofeu, Rafinha, Alberto, Bartra, Montoya.

The team that Luis Enrique had was of a far better age and a higher quality than this current one. It was a one off b team like of which there had not been for years at that level.

All this praise for Luis Enrique being tactically astute and Eusebio being clue less just ignore the difference in quality of players they had to work with.

 

[DonAndres]

It seems that any player that progressed under Luis Enrique and Guardiola it was all down to them and any player that has progressed under Eusebio it is down to the player.

Plenty of players improved in the b team under him - Tello, Cuenca, Deulofeu, Rafinha, Alberto, Bartra, Montoya.

The team that Luis Enrique had was of a far better age and a higher quality than this current one. It was a one off b team like of which there had not been for years at that level.

All this praise for Luis Enrique being tactically astute and Eusebio being clue less just ignore the difference in quality of players they had to work with.

Not all players who happened to improve while Eusebio was around are due to his work as coach. A majority improved as individuals because of their progress with age and experience, not because he had a system that nurtured their abilities and got them to perform. Eusebio was handed talented players and a balanced squad, not to mention access to the transfer market, yet they've still looked disjointed and perform at a poor level below their standard.

Coaches are responsible for development of a player within a unit/system (e.g Messi in false 9 under Pep, Cesc under Tata, those are the most obvious to the eye examples but the principle can be applied to a majority of players under quality coaches). I firmly believe that Eusebio has very little to nothing to give to the players and add to their development.

 

[Ronnie10]

RM doesn't have a playing philosophy, La Masia does...All the youth level teams do well in their respective age groups but only the B team fails...It's not merely down to losing talent, they are a conveyor belt of talent...Plus, let's face it, Barcelona B have bought or brought in talent quite a bit under Eusebio as well - Roman, Suarez, Nieto, Femenia, Araujo, Lomban, Ié, Cá, Rodri, Alberto, Campins, Gafarot, Ortola and Bañuz

For the note last year Juvenile A got kicked 2:0 from Copa de Campeones by Las Palmas in the very first game. While in Copa del Rey Juvenile A lost to Athletic Bilbao 5:0, the cup eventually was won by Real Madrid, who beat Athletic 4:0 in the final. IMO last year was a big fail of Juvenile A.

Another case is our Golden 98 generation with all the stars of Lee, Alena,Morer and so on failed to qualify for Nike Cup. Spain was represented by Real Madrid as the best Spanish team.

 

[F4THi]

I think that in addition of a coach, Barca B needs a striker, winger and a CB !

Rubi , Sergio Rodriquez [ Betis ] , Kevin Mendez [ Penarol ] , Casasola [ Boca Juniors ]

if this happen. I can say that they can finish Mid table

 

[Wouterinho]

I think that in addition of a coach, Barca B needs a striker, winger and a CB !

Rubi , Sergio Rodriquez [ Betis ] , Kevin Mendez [ Penarol ] , Casasola [ Boca Juniors ]

if this happen. I can say that they can finish Mid table

It's not about where they finish, it's about developing young players...
Signing a striker when you have Dongou and Sandro Ramirez would just be silly imo

 

[jklz]

We have three strikers with excellent potential in Dongou, Sandro and Sanabria. We also have this excellent winger in Adama. Unfortunately, Traoré doesn't really get a chance at the B-team. A centre back might be a good addition, but we also have Ié returning from an injury soon; who could form an excellent partnership with Bagnack.