Lol, have you heard about someone like Cruyff? And the Dream Team? Barcelona had two sides since Cruyff's influence. The ones who believed in that way of playing, and the ones who didn't. The fact that La Masia, which is basically the school of Barcelona's philosophy, resembles more the Cruyff model... it means this is more our style than anything.
La Masia dictates the identity of the club. The technical players who know to keep the ball, pass it in short spaces, move and play 1-2s, that's our style. When La Masia will produce more young Essiens instead of Xavis, Iniestas, Riqui Puigs and Alenas, then yea, you'll have a point.
People speak about Pep era as if it was some alien tactics. It was possession football after all. Refined and polished by the best, but the principles exist for more than 50 years.
Can you name me those eras where we didn't follow Crujff, except during mighty EV?
In late 90s, you had Van Gaal, a Dutch coach, follower of Crujff, who won a CL with Ajax, playing Crujff's style before coming to Barca in his first stint.
If Van Gaal was not a symbol of a total football, I don't know who is.
The other thing is our finances.
During Van Gaal, we bought 10 players from Dutch NT team or from Ajax.
Crujff's follower bought: Gk Hesp, CB De Boer, CB Bogarde, RB Reiziger, CM Cocu, CM Ronald De Boer, CAM Litmanen, CF Kluivert, winger Zenden from Dutch NT/Ajax.
How is that investing in La Masia and in "our roots"?
I have no idea what are you rambling about in your post about Essiens and Xavis.
Can you elaborate me:
Bobby Robson
Van Gaal 1
Rexach
Serra Ferrer
Van Gaal 2
Antic
Rijkaard
Those are coaches in between Crujff and Pep.
1. which coaches followed Crujff's ideas?
2. which didn't?
3. during which coaches we believed in La Masia?
4. during which we didn't? And why not?
5. during which coaches we were spending like crazy, and why?
You are talking about La Masia, I am saying that Barca is in general maybe the most chaotic club in the history.
Presidents, fans, papers are always going into extremes with everything, paired with Catalan's latino hot-blooded roots and you have 100s of silly transfers, desperate transfers, electoral signings etc.
Dembele, Coutinho, Neymar 2019 saga. That is more or less how Barca has always worked.
But you guys who grew up in Pep's era created a bubble where you think that we are some organized club thinking about a long term future, building from La Masia and making wise decisions.
How we don't spend money, how we are wise, build from La Masia etc.
Neymar 2019's saga is the most typical example of a classic Barca...
During Pep, our otherwise chaotic club turned into an organized and wise organisation for 3 years.
After that, we returned back to our roots.
Spending like drunken millionaires and changing long term plans each 3 Months with no clear ideas who will be a coach in 6 Months and who will be our transfer targets in 6 Months.