21 - Frenkie de Jong

[BBZ8800]

I spoke about this subject in details before in Rabiot's thread, saying that even if we take Messi's salary out we are still mismanaging payroll. KPMG confirmed we have the highest increase year-on-year (42%).

I have wrote that imo a reason for that are CLs from 2009-2011 and after that Barto paid too much to our core players to keep them (he thought that we will rule the world for the next 10 years).
And now there is no way back.

Can you or someone check these stats for let's say 2005 or 2009?
I guess that we weren't a no1 club in the world in terms of salaries and in terms of this income/salary ratio.

If my estimations are true, then CLs, and trying to lock down our core players for the next 10 years and a domino effect after that caused this mess.

Its a combination, as the big increase in staff cost is the rapid decline of the value of our squad, not simply their wages. Rakitic is probably worth 20m in the summer. Busi not much more. We havent replaced our ageing players with high quality players that increase in value. There's Umtiti and possibly Dembele, but Umtiti's career might be over.

On paper, we tried to buy young players, who looked good before we have bought them:
Semedo, Umtiti, Lenglet, Arthur, Denis, Gomes, Dembele, Coutinho, Paco, Malcom.

Each of them had chances and a hype behind him to become big or a starter.

 

[George_Costanza]

I have wrote that imo a reason for that are CLs from 2009-2011 and after that Barto paid too much to our core players to keep them (he thought that we will rule the world for the next 10 years).
And now there is no way back.

Can you or someone check these stats for let's say 2005 or 2009?
I guess that we weren't a no1 club in the world in terms of salaries and in terms of this income/salary ratio.

If my estimations are true, then CLs, and trying to lock down our core players for the next 10 years and a domino effect after that caused this mess.

Well, what're the bonuses for then? A team wins UCL, the players get an agreed sum of money/bonuses listed in their contract/term sheet. If they start asking for more, then they should leave. No player bigger than the club, something Barto doesn't and will never understand.

 

[Jombi]

I have wrote that imo a reason for that are CLs from 2009-2011 and after that Barto paid too much to our core players to keep them (he thought that we will rule the world for the next 10 years).
And now there is no way back.

Can you or someone check these stats for let's say 2005 or 2009?
I guess that we weren't a no1 club in the world in terms of salaries and in terms of this income/salary ratio.

If my estimations are true, then CLs, and trying to lock down our core players for the next 10 years and a domino effect after that caused this mess.



On paper, we tried to buy young players, who looked good before we have bought them:
Semedo, Umtiti, Lenglet, Arthur, Denis, Gomes, Dembele, Coutinho, Paco, Malcom.

Each of them had chances and a hype behind him to become big or a starter.

Only Umtiti and Arthur have definitely seen their value increase since we bought them. If we dont buy players that cause our squad value to increase, the value of our squad will continue to plummet. Our most valuable players after the ageing Messi is Dembele and Coutinho, and Coutinho looks like a huge flop.

 

[El Barcelona]

Madrid joins the 'race' now. Haha

 

[YodaMaster]

Some Barça fans are fucking blind, other Barça fans don't know what the fuck this club should be about. Some others just ignore facts and history.

That's exactly what Dutch media has been reporting for months. That City and PSG had fervently pursued his signature while Barca only showed a passing interest.

Oriol Domenech is saying Barca never pursued him properly because they've had their eyes set on Rabiot all the time.

This, this, this and this again !!!

Confirmed by...

LMAO!! That's what we get when we have a coach never drop senior players no matter how bad they play. FDJ thinks he would be benched for a player like Rakitic.

[tw]1085615764453974016[/tw]

THIS!

FDJ choses PSG because Barça doesn't give a fuck about him ! They don't even pretend to be trying in his case ! They heard that the kid is a prospect and they also heard that he sucked Messi's and Barça's dicks for months, so they just thought "yeah we'll keep him as a plan C, he's a kid in love with Barça, he'll wait for us and our greatness forever". Bunch of dumbasses. The kid is just intelligent: he sees that a club doesn't care about him, he sees that club being managed like shit, he sees young players being ignored (Alena, Malcom, Semedo) and their career destroyed... On the other hand there's another big club (PSG) with huge players that is ready to die for him.

I'm a die hard Barça fan since beginning of 2000s, since I'm a kid. Barcelona has a big part in my life, I legit told my gf who I love to fuck off the 14th february of 2017 just because Barça was playing in CL that night (and they lost in a shameful way to PSG 4-0). For me, Messi and Iniesta are the greatest human beings to walk on earth in our era.

Well, I'm telling you right now: I'd chose PSG in FDJ's place. A football career is short, and you have to do what's best for your career. Feelings shouldn't to be involved in this. Of course the best option is when best career choice is also heart choice, but here FDJ's heart choice (Barça) doesn't care about him.

But some weak minded Barça fans will continue with their BS "FDJ chose money" LMAO.

[tw]1085572398093611008[/tw]

Do we even need to add something ? What young player will be seduced by that kind of shit ?

This brazilian fanboy is as annoying as Divemar. Who cares about QSG?

Cruyff used to said: If you have doubts about joining Barça then you are not suited for Barça.

Iif De Jong prefers QSG it´s dandy. I have no issue.

Cruyff did say that yes. And Cruyff was almost always right when he spoke about Barça. But in FDJ's case, the kid never had doubts about Barcelona, Barcelona's board simply didn't give a fuck about the kid. Just like they didn't give a fuck about Modric, Thiago, Isco, Eriksen,... who were all twerking to catch Barça's attention. At this point, you'll have to be a complete moron if you can't admit that this board don't give a shit about Barça DNA and actually wants to delete it with buys like Paulinho, Rakitic, Vidal and the next one is Rabiot.

But keep applauding this board and the worst possible choices they're making, even more for a club like Barça which is all about beautiful football.

We're not saving money from Neymar. That's bullshit. We probably want the player, but we don't want to enter a biding war with PSG just so that Ajax and his agent can get filthy rich.

Let's be logical about this. Ajax and De Jong's agent are in love with arab money, because there's lots and lots of those flying around in the market. They want a big piece of the big PSG pie and we're not gona bite.

Imo, the way the market is, we need to be smarter than auctioning for hyped up kids who haven't proven anything yet.

Lol come on man. We spend fucking 100m€ for Paulinho and Gomes, we spend 40m€ for Malcom just to let him have one of the best seats as a Camp Nou spectator. We spend nearly 50m€ for Matthieu and Vermaelen. But yeah right we're a poor club, okay mate. Good one.

Yeah let's not auction for hyped kids, let's just buy another Paulinho, a new Song and bring a cry baby like Rabiot. We'll rule the world with such talents just as we're doing since Rosell/Barto.

Barca spent nearly €300m on Dembele & Coutinho. Stop the dramatics.

To be fair, a big part of those 300m€ was just the money we received for Neymar. You just took a bad example. Because Barça is indeed spending a load shit of money and I don't know why some people here try to pretend that Barça has no money.


Also, I'd like to say that I don't know [MENTION=19661]Jair Ventura[/MENTION] and his past on this forum. But in these last pages that I read, he's actually politely debating, supports his argument, and has a lot of points. He's not being disrespectful. Y'all need to cool and calm down.

Regarding PSG and its history, who fucking cares ? AC Milan is biggest club in the world behind Real Madrid history wise, and again who fucking cares today ? Because AC Milan fans could say "(insert promising player's name) is a fucking arab money asshole if he prefers PSG to our club" and IMO they'd be pathetic.

The truth is that today PSG has one of the best team in Europe. In attack and defence, they have best players in the world. They have a whole in midfield and they're about to fix it. With Verratti and FDJ, they'll have one of the best midfield in the world too. Plus they have a very good, young and promising coach.

At this point, if some of you think that there's more guarantees at Barça to win one or several CL's in next 10 years than at PSG, well you could be surprised with time...

 

[BBZ8800]

Well, what're the bonuses for then? A team wins UCL, the players get an agreed sum of money/bonuses listed in their contract/term sheet. If they start asking for more, then they should leave. No player bigger than the club, something Barto doesn't and will never understand.

My point is, today it is hard to remember that era since it happened 7-8 years ago.

Today, if we'll win a CL and if Umtiti, Dembele, Coutinho or someone will make crazy demands, we will say: f*** of.
But, back then, due to how dominant we were and how "new" and beautiful our football was, people, fans, the board, media, everyone thought that all of our starters are Gods on Earth.
Now, the point of the story is NOT whether they were Gods or not.
The point is, in that moment, it seemed that NO ONE will be able to stop for the next 10 years.
And back then, it seemed somewhat logical to pay as much as players wanted.

So, for example: if Busi or Pique had a wage 5M Net and we have just won 2 Cls, and if they said: I want 10M Net, the board said: ok, ok, fine.
And in that moment the board wanted to everything possible to keep all starters.

In hindsight, our team underachieved after 2011.
In terms as if: in 2011 it looked like that we will dominate the CL for the next 10 years and win 5+ trophies.
Till today, we won only 1 CL after 2011.
So, in an objective way, we were not bad after 2011.
But compared to a 2009-2011 era and how high expectations were of our team in the future: we underachieved.

So, my analogy is: we paid 50M for Gomes. He hasn't reached expectations.
We paid 165M for Coutinho. He hasn't reached expectations for now.

Imo, the same is with wages: after 2011, we started to pay our core players with an idea that they will win several CLs after 2011, and that every single penny invested in their wages is a good investment.
But, today in hindsight, we made a bad idea: we paid too much for wages of a team from 2011 and we didn't get as much as expected in terms of CLs.

So, back to your post, it is easy to say today to a player: your wage is 8M Net. And if we'll win a CL, you will get 2M extra.
If he'll say: No. Well, we'll sell him and buy someone else.
But again, the point is: all players today EXCEPT Messi are replacable, isn't it?
But go back to 2011: Puyol, Pique, Busi, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Villa, Alves. Would you let go ANY of those players BACK THEN or would you give them whatever they are asking for (the same as the board did)?

To some extent:
The board was BOTH right and wrong.
To some extent, it seemed a good idea to keep the winning team and pay a lot to keep them.
On the other hand, if the bet will fail, we will be without trophies and with an insane wages and with a domino effect with squad player's wages who are also demanding too much now.
And that's what we have today.

Only Umtiti and Arthur have definitely seen their value increase since we bought them. If we dont buy players that cause our squad value to increase, the value of our squad will continue to plummet. Our most valuable players after the ageing Messi is Dembele and Coutinho, and Coutinho looks like a huge flop.

In hindsight, today majority of them looked like bad or average deals.
But, back then:
Denis looked like a future starter. Remember the hype: the next Iniesta. This guy deserves a No6. He is young and has so much potential.
Semedo was the next Alves. The most technical RB out there. He looked like a Superman in Portugal. We have found a longterm successor for Alves, people thought.
Dembele, the new Neymar.
Coutinho, even I thought that he will be the next everything, a perfect player.
Arthur, the next Xavi.
Paco, the best young Spanish Cf. A lot of us believed that he could be the next Villa, Raul, Morientes back then. An awesome buy, we are set for the next 10 years.
Etc.

So, it is "easy" to say today that we didn't try to buy new, young players.
We tried. We really did.
But majority of them failed from this or that reason.

 

[Devils]

I will reiterate.

Barcelona can afford this guy both from a transfer fee and wage perspective but are CHOOSING not to because our manager is happy with the likes of Busi and Rakitic, both of whom are earning way more money than their performances warrant on the pitch.

 

[YodaMaster]

Cruyff used to said: If you have doubts about joining Barça then you are not suited for Barça.

Iif De Jong prefers QSG it´s dandy. I have no issue.

Btw, Cruyff also said somewhere around 2014 that Real Madrid is buying Barça DNA players like Modric, Isco, Kroos while Barça (under current board) is no longer looking for such players and is losing its own DNA.

And here's a new example with the FDJ/Rabiot stuff that this board is pulling.

But good for you guys, keep on applauding this board while it is destroying Barça and all Barça's values. No issue right ?

I will reiterate.

Barcelona can afford this guy both from a transfer fee and wage perspective but are CHOOSING not to because our manager is happy with the likes of Busi and Rakitic, both of whom are earning way more money than their performances warrant on the pitch.

Exactly. And soon we'll add Rabiot.

 

[Jombi]

In hindsight, today majority of them looked like bad or average deals.
But, back then:
Denis looked like a future starter. Remember the hype: the next Iniesta. This guy deserves a No6.

That's nuts. I get that you want to claim that everyone believed these absurd exaggerated claims that you make, but thats simply a lie. The guy was nowhere near Iniesta's level at the same age, thats why he was offloaded in the first place.

Our track record has to improve, or else our squad value will continue to decline sharply.

 

[El Barcelona]

[MENTION=22178]YodaMaster[/MENTION] that interview that Sjors van Veen posted says basicly nothing. It was for receiving the award he won. 3min about his games for Ajax in December, the city trip that his girlfriend made to Paris where he confirmed that she didn't bought an appartement and it has nothing to do with the transfer rumors. He also stated that he visit many cities so makes no point. He likes the city of Barcelona and the club a lot but he's not going to make a decision based on that. He wants the best sporting project.

Good post btw.

On a side note, the interview that Koeman gave pointed out that he gives as advice that they need playing time and he also stated that he had no problem when he arrived ad barca aged 26... It al point out on playing time.

 

[VN10]

Guys, relax. The Sjors van Veen tweet is based on an interview and Sjors purposefuly translated it into English the wrong way only to get some cloud/attention.

It is from this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEIAIwjIejQ

Frenkie said: 'Last summer I was on a holiday in Barca, and people over there would ask me if I was making a transfer to Barca. But that was not the case (at that time)".

He continous by saying that his girlfriend asked 'permission' to post that Paris picture cause of the current media coverage and he said that 'everyone should be able to make a city trip whenever or wherever, and post pictures about it'.

Sjors, je bent een stumpert.

 

[wisconsincule]

I will reiterate.

Barcelona can afford this guy both from a transfer fee and wage perspective but are CHOOSING not to because our manager is happy with the likes of Busi and Rakitic, both of whom are earning way more money than their performances warrant on the pitch.

This. We will sign Rabiot because it’s a good business move but Valverde is happy with what we have. He doesn’t care about the long term project because he won’t be here. He only needs results now and that is how he’s going to coach.

 

[Devils]

It's a matter of balance too.

Barcelona are just way too risk adverse when it comes to dealing with their senior players, they view them as untouchable. This is a clear misdirection of sporting management.

Rakitic + Busi's weekly wages are 350-400k
Arthur is not on high wages like 70k, so say you bring on FDJ and even give him wages in the area of 100k.

You probably upgrade your midfield (especially with the way Busi and Rakitic have been performing over the past few seasons it's not hard to believe that FDJ and Arthur would be a big upgrade even if it takes 1 season or so) and significantly reduce your midfield wages by more than half.

Can't keep viewing Rakitic and Busi as untouchable, they've been so horrendously inconsistent, it's hard to take. There are viable options IN the squad to replace these guys and even that doesn't happen, so to hope an external option like FDJ could replace them is just hopeless wishful thinking.

 

[George_Costanza]

So, back to your post, it is easy to say today to a player: your wage is 8M Net. And if we'll win a CL, you will get 2M extra.
If he'll say: No. Well, we'll sell him and buy someone else.
But again, the point is: all players today EXCEPT Messi are replacable, isn't it?
But go back to 2011: Puyol, Pique, Busi, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Villa, Alves. Would you let go ANY of those players BACK THEN or would you give them whatever they are asking for (the same as the board did)?

I get your point but do you really think players like Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, and Busquets will leave their childhood club for few more millions? Those players bleed for Barcelona and will never leave if they have been paid the average of any top clubs + Bonuses for winning UCL.

Example:
Let us assume Xavi is getting an 8m net salary in 2011.
Winning UCL might get a huge sum of 2m extra. That's 10m. This should motivate him to win another UCL, or his income drops to 8m.

If he, for example, decide to move to PSG for a 10m net (an increase of 2m), would this makes him happy? (maybe) but in PSG, him winning UCL might be slim. The sporting project might not be as fulfilling as it used to be.

Would he stay in his childhood club that he undoubtedly loves and get a few million less but can easily compensate by winning another UCL? (which is very possible).

From the list of players, you have mentioned I would think only Alves and Villa might leave a promising sporting project for a few more million.

The club is mismanaged and riding on marketing revenues and Pep era success. This will only last until Messi retires. Not a sustainable model.

 

[fergus90]

I will reiterate.

Barcelona can afford this guy both from a transfer fee and wage perspective but are CHOOSING not to because our manager is happy with the likes of Busi and Rakitic, both of whom are earning way more money than their performances warrant on the pitch.

I think this sums up the Barcelona transfer policy in the last few seasons, bar Coutinho and Dembele who were bought as superstars to replace a superstar.

Our signings have been players who are there to provide cover because certain players are immune from being dropped because of past success no matter how ineffective they have become in tough matches in recent times. Busquets,Rakitic,Pique & Suarez will never be benched because of who they are.

Form doesn't matter at this club, especially now with Valverde. Busquets could be injured for 3 months for example, his replacement play excellently however we know the moment he's fit again, he's in the side regardless of form. This applies to the others too.

We still rely on the core model who were there during the successful Pep era, because the reality is our current board have no real sporting vision or idea of what Barca needs.