Barça Homegrown Talent Flourishes
Monday, 22 September 08, 11:04 AM · Comments (11)
Barça's 1-6 in El Molinon yesterday was satisfying not just for the result and a decent performance. What was especially pleasing was to see the role of the homegrown players who more and more are becoming the leaders of the team. Six of yesterday's starting eleven came up through the youth teams which if you compare it to some English teams such as Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool is an excellent sign that things are working well at the lower levels of the club.
It is true that Messi, Puyol, Iniesta, Xavi and Valdés have all been around for a while now, and that Sergio Busquets is the only revelation of the six who started in Gijon. However, it seems that Xavi and Iniesta are both still improving and they are making us forget very quickly about losing two of the leaders of the team, Ronaldinho and Deco. Both players increased their reputations at this summer's Eurocopa and it seems now as if either player is capable of taking a game by the balls and running it single-handedly. Xavi has also improved greatly in his runs into the area and having already scored against Wisla, Sporting Lisbon and Sporting Gijon, is well on his way to beating his best goal tally set last season of 9 goals.
The introduction of Sergio Busquets has been a big surprise to me. Having watched the B-team a few times last season I expected Victor Vazquez to be the first midfielder in line for a few first team chances. Busquets has done excellently in the two matches he's played, hardly giving a bad pass in either game he has demonstrated good positional awareness, strength in the tackle and an admirable fighting character which will serve him well to survive at the top.
Bojan Krkic and Pedro Rodriguez have also played this season and there could soon be a chance for Victor Vazquez, Victor Sanchez or Jeffren Suarez to win a few more minutes with the first team. Not far behind we have two seventeen-year-olds with tremendous promise for the future: Gai Assulin and Thiago Alcántara. As long as the English clubs keep their hands off!
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we definitely hav one of the best football academy and the best young players...
this we hav achieved and still achieving without constant poaching from other big teams...
so henry is back for d betis game? 
Barca's academy is truly the best in the world, as La Masia churns out excellent players. it is also good for the club to have so many youth players in squad.
Other clubs must stop trying to steal our youth players, they should try develop their own. although those players will never be better then the La Masia products...
so hands off our players Arsenal, Juventus, Chelsea...
It definately seems that Madrid do like copying us alot.
1. having a Dutch revolution, like we had a few years ago
2. trying to bring through youth players, by buying them back.
But Barca will always be back
youngsters doing well. great to see. bit more of bojan would be nice.
anyway...not happy with phill ball's new soccernet article. what a prick
messi is fading away? phill ball...joke
barca 3 betis 0
Barca's Youth Academy is the best. Clubs like; Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea don't have youth academies to speak of. It is much easier for the likes of Wenger and Fergeson to "poach" young talented players from Spain, especially from Barca !!
To Frede,
Raul is not a Real Madrid youth product (comes from Atletico). But don't tell any Madridistas. They'll start crying.
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thats why they said FCBARCELONA youth academy is the best among the best football academy in the world.. and i hope barca will never sell our best young player at any coast!! Barca producing great and fantastic footballers. FORCA BARCA!!!
We always compare ourselves to Real Madrid (beep--beeep). And in this case I think it makes sence to do it once again.. RM started their game against Racing with only three - 3! - homegrown "talents"; Casillas, Guti and Raúl... And on the bench: ONE - 1!
Maybe one would count Ruben De La Red in, but then again, we could count Piqúe in. MADRID CABRÓN