Mateo Kovačić

[Butaan4barca]

yes, its time we hire some real time professionals, besides doing our old friends favors and putting them in critical positions

 

[serghei]

And what if we ended up not signing Pogba? It is not a sure thing. In a few years time I am afraid we will experience pains replacing the starting XI, not to mention building depth. God help us that La Masia will provide a few options.

What I don't get is, how come Real Madrid can sign all these young talents and not worried about them wanting to leave, meanwhile ours seem to be such an impatient bunch that as long as they don't get promoted and getting a lot of playing time with the first team they want to get the hell out?

Luft, we might lose a year due to transition, but the thing is a club like Barcelona makes the implementation faster. Rakitic is the perfect example of a relatively young player being implemented right away, to the degree that he has already become an important part in the team. Also, Jordi Alba's case. We bought him and he played right away.

Let's take the players position for position.

GK - Ter Stegen - 23 years old

RB - Aleix Vidal - 25 years old

CB - Pique - 28 years old

CB - Mascherano (!) - 31 years old

LB - Jordi Alba - 26 years old

DM - Busquets - 27 years old

RCM - Rakitic - 27 years old

LCM - Iniesta (!) - 31 years old

LW - Neymar - 23 years old

CF - Suarez - 29 years old

RW - Messi - 28 years old

Most of our team is relatively young. 26-27 years old for most players. That's a young team that will continue to form the core of Barcelona in the next 4 years.

We have two position that we need to replace. One would be perfectly covered for many years with the signing of Pogba. The other one is a problem, because Bartra is a major letdown.

Is that team old? No. The only starters we need to replace in the next two years are Iniesta (Pogba and Arda) and Mascherano.

Take Isco's example. By the time he is ready to play for Real Madrid (if that will happen at all) as a definitive starter in tough matches, he'll be 25. Varane as well probably. He's been with Madrid since 2011, but he still is in the shadow of Pepe - Ramos. Madrid doesn't have a player like Neymar to be absolute world class at 22-23 years old. They have players that COULD BE world class. But as we saw with Ozil, with Higuain, these players don't quite get there. Close, but not quite there.

The only clear young starter they have is James.

 

[Stric]

Bringing young players isn't a guarantee of wasting Messi's best years. People are blowing that out of proportion. Take Kovačić, for example. Even if we had brought him here, that wouldn't have meant that he's guaranteed a starting spot. Iniesta and Rakitić would still be the default starters, but the difference is that we'd have a quality player to bring in when they're not available. We still have the same guys for the job, we're just adding extras and future replacements. That's exactly why players like Kovačić are perfect for us in this exact period. We need good players to rotate with our senior starters, and by the time those seniors are close to leaving or retirement, the younger guys will have acquired enough experience and playing time to take over the starting spot. That's the natural process, and it works perfect if the player has enough potential. Not everyone on the bench needs to be old and close to retirement.

I don't consider Sergi Roberto or Rafinha to be on the same level as Kovačić, although I would have preferred someone from our own youth ranks to be that guy.

Also, Lufstalag has a very good point. We're overly obsessed with how our future transfers will cope with not being default starters from the get-go. Why? At this point, we are objectively bigger and more successful than any other club in Europe and the rest of the world. Why is it that a player would be OK with being benched in Bayern, Madrid or Chelsea, but not here? We're putting this on ourselves, and we don't have to. Many people were saying that Kovačić wouldn't want to come here because he'd be a backup. Well if he ends up at Madrid, that's exactly what's going to happen to him. So I don't see why we're making ourselves seem weaker than we really are.

 

[Irish_Cules]

Almost feels like he has been signed to stop Barca going for him next year. They've signed yet another attacking mid. The list of names they have in midifield is admittedly mouth watering but the fact is that they wont all get their desired playing time. And you just know they'll sign another similar player next summer. I can't help but feel that it will be Isco and Jese who will suffer from this policy in the long run.

 

[Stric]

Alba is not really a fair example because he was bought long after it was obvious that it is absolutely necessary to buy a LB. Of course he had to play right away.

Rakitić is a great example of how a new player completely took over a spot, but he's not that young. And it was necessary to have him make that spot his own within only one season because they knew Xavi was going to leave.

With Iniesta, we'd still have at least a good 2-3 seasons to have the young new player slowly take over. It would work if the player is good enough and isn't a self-important shit that wouldn't have patience to earn his place.

Besides, a new midfielder would have the best time rotating from any new player, because he'd essentially have two spots to fill in for.

 

[Luftstalag14]

Bringing young players isn't a guarantee of wasting Messi's best years. People are blowing that out of proportion. Take Kovačić, for example. Even if we had brought him here, that wouldn't have meant that he's guaranteed a starting spot. Iniesta and Rakitić would still be the default starters, but the difference is that we'd have a quality player to bring in when they're not available. We still have the same guys for the job, we're just adding extras and future replacements. That's exactly why players like Kovačić are perfect for us in this exact period. We need good players to rotate with our senior starters, and by the time those seniors are close to leaving or retirement, the younger guys will have acquired enough experience and playing time to take over the starting spot. That's the natural process, and it works perfect if the player has enough potential. Not everyone on the bench needs to be old and close to retirement.

I don't consider Sergi Roberto or Rafinha to be on the same level as Kovačić, although I would have preferred someone from our own youth ranks to be that guy.

Also, Lufstalag has a very good point. We're overly obsessed with how our future transfers will cope with not being default starters from the get-go. Why? At this point, we are objectively bigger and more successful than any other club in Europe and the rest of the world. Why is it that a player would be OK with being benched in Bayern, Madrid or Chelsea, but not here? We're putting this on ourselves, and we don't have to. Many people were saying that Kovačić wouldn't want to come here because he'd be a backup. Well if he ends up at Madrid, that's exactly what's going to happen to him. So I don't see why we're making ourselves seem weaker than we really are.

I sort of have an answer already. In my opinion, we have become the victim of our own success, because of MSN has been so successful, because the likes of Busquets and Iniesta are still going strong (relatively), youngsters might not see a future with the first team where they become regular starters any time soon. With Real Madrid and Bayern, it is less of an issue.

I don't watch Serie A at all, is Kovacic really that good? Much better than Rafinha? I for one still think Rafinha is progressing well.

 

[BBZ8800]

Bringing young players isn't a guarantee of wasting Messi's best years. People are blowing that out of proportion. Take Kovačić, for example. Even if we had brought him here, that wouldn't have meant that he's guaranteed a starting spot. Iniesta and Rakitić would still be the default starters, but the difference is that we'd have a quality player to bring in when they're not available.

I personally never said that buying Kovacic would ruin Messi's prime years, even though he wouldn't help that much right now.

I was posting often about "ruining Messi's best years", and I usually meant on cases like:
1. buying 100M Pogba right now, he needs to be a starter and ruining our treble winning team (with Messi)
2. playing Bartra RIGHT NOW, because Bartresi needs time. What if we ruin his talent etc? Who cares, he had chances. We won't ruin Messi's prime years for a f*cking Bartresi
3. we need to give time to Adama. No thanks. Not in Messi's last years
4. we need to give time to Halilovic. No thanks, not during Messi's last years
5. we need to play MATS instead of Bravo. He is young. Young. Key word: young. We need to play him at all costs (during Messi's final years) so that we will (maybe) get a future world class Gk
6. we need to play Samper right now. If not, the world will explode
7. we need to try Grimaldo in our team also in this Season. More or less, we need to try every single young player in this Season. And in the next season, we need to try some other 10 random new kids who needs "testing" in the first team during Messi's final years
8. we need to buy Gerson, he could be the new Pogba etc

Anyway, we don't need to go into extremes.
Yes, in general, buying older players or players for right now is the best option currently.
But that doesn't mean that we can't:
1. buy a more or less proven young player like Kovacic for "cheaper" sums like 30-ish M (not a 100M Pogba)
2. or give some chances to 1-2 players from Bteam this Season

But we CAN'T/SHOULDN'T:
1. test 10 young players in one Season
2. buying unneeded players like Gerson for too high prices
3. buying a superstar Pogba who needs to play in the first team from the day 1 etc

 

[xavi_the_Boss]

How does RM line up with Benitez and where would Kovacic fit in?

 

[Alarcón]

Why are people so freaked out about Kovacic signing for RM? He wasn't even a starter for Inter last year and now he's supposed to be a world beater? We'll see how good he'll eventually become but I haven't seen too many players really develop at Madrid, even less if they don't play regularly. I reckon half the people complaining here have never seen Kovacic play.

 

[raki]

How does RM line up with Benitez and where would Kovacic fit in?

bench. stron bench

 

[Co0ter]

I'm so gutted. I haven't been this disappointed since Hazard signed for Chelsea. I couldn't care less about James or Kroos signing for RM. With Isco it bothered me a little bit, probably more so because RM signed him and we were losing Thiago.

Kovacic though...my eyes will bleed watching him play for that glass-house, circus that is RM.

 

[DonAK]

I'm not worried about us not signing exactly Kovacic. But the club will need to start removing the deadweight and start replacing and bringing on solutions for the old guard gradually and it should start from this summer.

 

[xavi_the_Boss]

I'm not worried about us not signing exactly Kovacic. But the club will need to start removing the deadweight and start replacing and bringing on solutions for the old guard gradually and it should start from this summer.

We are banned so we can´t really remove our dead weight.

 

[Ini8]

Why are people so freaked out about Kovacic signing for RM? He wasn't even a starter for Inter last year and now he's supposed to be a world beater? We'll see how good he'll eventually become but I haven't seen too many players really develop at Madrid, even less if they don't play regularly. I reckon half the people complaining here have never seen Kovacic play.

I'm more worried about RM snatching up yet another promising player in Kovacic rather than the player himself. That's been the trend for them the last few years while we fill our bench with dead weight.

 

[DonAK]

We are banned so we can´t really remove our dead weight.

Right now it's true, but not signing the likes of Douglas, Vermaelen and identifying who should've been let go and brought in when we weren't banned would be the first step.