La Masia: Barcelona’s stagnant assembly line

 

 

Barcelona have done it again, Lionel Messi & Co. have won a second treble. But while the first team still boasts a strong presence of La Masia graduates, the next outstanding talents emanating from Barcelona’s school of excellence have yet to establish themselves. Excluding Munir El Haddadi, who is more of a peripheral figure in Barcelona’s squad, the last academy product to truly cement his place in the first team is Jordi Alba.

Even turbocharged Alba did not follow a direct path to the first team; he ultimately joined via Valencia, as is the case with new signing Aleix Vidal, who had a brief spell at Barcelona’s fabled academy. The last La Masia graduate of the current team to break into the starting eleven was Pedro – in 2009-10, ousting Thierry Henry in the process.

Truthfully, over the past 10 years Barcelona has always had a healthy percentage of La Masia graduates within their ranks, a golden generation coinciding with the Catalans most successful period. The key players: Xavi, Andrés Iniesta, Carles Puyol, Lionel Messi, Gerard Piqué, Sergio Busquets and Pedro formed the backbone of what is arguably the greatest club side in history.

Ever since the zenith of Guardiola’s team, around 2011-2012, a lot of promising talents have failed to make the grade at Barcelona for one reason or the other. Marc Muniesa and Bojan currently ply their trade for Stoke City in the Premier League, the Dos Santos brothers (Jonathan and Giovanni) have reunited in Villarreal, and Cristian Tello is donning Porto FC’s jersey these days, albeit on loan.

It’s just a small sample and doesn’t even include Thiago, arguably the last genuine world-class prospect graduating from La Masia. While Thiago left on his own accord, and due to an oversight (?) with regard to contract stipulations, Bojan in particular serves as a case study in what can go wrong in the development of a La Masia student.

After hitting the jackpot with the promotion of Messi to the first team squad just a few years earlier, Bojan’s debut may have been rushed to the point that he can be considered a victim of circumstances. While Messi is, well, Messi aka the world’s greatest player, Bojan isn’t even remotely anywhere on the same level.

But his premature debut meant excessive and unrealistic expectations were placed upon the talented Catalan. Expectations he could’ve never (and ultimately hasn’t) live up to.

If history repeats itself and follows a pattern, El Haddadi could very well turn out to be the next Bojan. A fantastic talent in the youth teams, bursting onto the scene only for his star to slowly fade out. Like Bojan, the youngster has also made his full debut with Spain’s national team, thus rendering him ineligible for the country of his parents, Morocco.

There’s a case to be made that Barcelona are at fault for the stunted development of Bojan, and more recently, Jean Marie Dongou. The Cameroonian has been tipped for great things, which he can still achieve, but it seems the youngster has taken a step back, or sideways in his progress. At 19 years old, time is still on his side. However, Barcelona’s strategy to unlock his potential (as well as others’) is murky at best.

Barcelona B have been relegated to Spain’s third tier, which is nothing less than an embarrassment, considering the team had arguably one of the strongest squads in Liga Adelante (Alen Halilovic, Sergi Samper, Adama Traore, Dongou amongst others). The Barcelona hierarchy now finds themselves with a problem of their own making, namely allowing the incompetence of a selected few to interfere with the development of the latest batch of talent coming through La Masia.

The youngsters are clearly too good to be wasted in the neverlands of Spain’s third tier, yet not good enough to be promoted to Barcelona’s first team. A predicament which leads to an avenue seldom explored by the Catalan giants: the loan system.

Under Frank Rijkaard and Pep Guardiola, La Masia graduates either arrived in the first team or left the club altogether. But while Rijkaard’s situation was born out of necessity when he was taking over the team’s reins during one of the lowest periods of the club, Guardiola was able to take full advantage of an ecosystem he knew inside-out and handpick the players he thought could complement his squad. It helped that the incoming players were more or less encouraged to push the veterans (age or decline) out of the side.

But ever since Barcelona reached the highest echelons of footballing excellence in 2011, none of the La Masia graduates (even returning ones like Cesc Fabregas) have managed to establish themselves, except Alba of course.

It’s a malaise born out of Barcelona’s toxic mixture of arrogance, ineptitude and unwillingness to compromise. Instead of sending the brightest prospects out on loan to one of Europe’s elite leagues, the Catalans favored the in-house option, namely Barcelona B; a team that played in Spain’s second division.

Further, the youngsters in the first team hardly grab a game these days as their competitors for a starting place are players like Messi, Neymar, Ivan Rakitic or Gerard Pique. Unfortunately for them, they’re are all world-class players, and they’re all in their prime. And they will remain at the peak of their powers for the foreseeable future.

Too good for Barcelona B, not quite good enough for FC Barcelona.

Enter Gerard Deulofeu and Denis Suárez.

The former is indisputably a fine talent, but not as big as he considers himself to be, and not nearly as talented enough to be above reproach. With Deulofeu’s rapid progress in Barcelona’s lower teams, and the recent failures of Bojan & Co., the club came to some kind of conclusion and allowed the Catalan to join Everton in the expectation that the returnee would mature during his stay abroad. However, Deulofeu’s semi-successful loan spell didn’t yield the desired outcome.

Instead of grabbing the chances afforded to him during pre-season, Deulofeu displayed a distinct lack of application, meaning, he couldn’t be bothered with defensive duties. But once again Barcelona are to blame too. According to reports, Roberto Martinez was eager to keep Deulofeu for one more season, giving him much needed continuity and guidance. But Barcelona panicked, or at least didn’t want him in England for too long.

Who knows, maybe a rival could have tempted him to leave the blaugrana, or maybe that was the thought process behind it.

Now Deulofeu is in Sevilla where he, wait for it, once again is a shining beacon of hard work and humility. Since February 2nd of this year, Deulofeu had been essentially warming the bench, if he was included in the squad at all.

His Barcelona, ahem, Sevilla teammate, Denis Suárez is making the most of his chances notching 46 appearances across all competitions for the Andalusian side.

Considering that Deulofeu’s direct competition for a starting berth in Barcelona’s XI is a certain Argentine, and four-time Ballon D’Or winner, he’d be well advised to adjust his mentality. As for Suárez, with Xavi having departed Barcelona for Qatar, and Iniesta entering the twilight years of his career, he’s more likely to establish himself as a regular than Deulofeu in the short- to mid-term. That is when he is returning to Barcelona next year, provided Sevilla don’t exercise the buy-option before then.

Ultimately, Barcelona should rethink their approach with regard to player development. The club doesn’t need to implement radical or wholesale changes. Until the final stages of player development, it is perfectly alright, but once the brightest prospects arrive in Barcelona B, a loan transfer to one of Europe’s elite leagues (but perhaps at a team less challenging than Sevilla) should become mandatory in order to augment their progress.

Although Suaréz (Denis, that is) could’ve played a more prominent role in Sevilla’s season run-in, he still has accumulated more minutes than, say, Barcelona’s Sergio Roberto. Who is, curiously enough, still something of an unknown quantity, despite being a mainstay in Barcelona’s first team squad for a few seasons now. For all intents and purposes, Roberto is still very much unproven.

The opponents will, however, point to Deulofeu’s nightmare of a loan spell in Andalusia to undermine its usefulness. Then again, Sevilla, and with all due respect to Everton FC, is a much more competitive environment. Especially with a strict taskmaster such as Unai Emery who demands the utmost dedication from his players. Not to say that Roberto Martinez does not, but two back-to-back Europa League triumphs, with Sevilla, on a shoestring budget, tell a story of their own.

If anything the loan exposed or supported assumptions Barcelona’s technical staff may or may not have had about Deulofeu. After all, Luis Enrique did include him on Barcelona’s pre-season tour but did not value his contributions (or lack thereof) enough to keep him around for the 2014-15 campaign. Basically, if Deulofeu can’t force his way into a top-class side such as Sevilla, how exactly is he going to succeed at Barcelona?

Of course, loaning out players remains a risky endeavor, but with Barcelona B relegated, and at least one year removed from promotion, the continued progress of La Masia’s best and brightest is best served by exhausting the loan system, at least at this point in time.

By gradually exposing them to greater challenges, via loans, the prospects can adjust accordingly without being subject to the immense pressure they would find at the Camp Nou. It would prepare them mentally to cope with the expectations once they are promoted to Barcelona’s first team.

It’s not the perfect solution by any means but it has far more advantages than disadvantages to it. Even the failures, such as Deulofeu, can provide some invaluable insights. In his case it’s he’s not mature enough to take on greater responsibility, and not quite ready to play at the highest level just yet.

And with Barcelona preparing for another era of dominance, there’s really no place for passengers (those seats are already taken).