Too early to say, but at least he is not a choir boy but a fighter.
So, quite different to 95% of La Masia products.
My point is:
1. in modern football not having a good physique is a flaw.
But you can still make it (in extremely rare cases, though) if you are world class in other areas.
2. also, in modern football, being a scared choir boy personality is a flaw.
But you can still make it if you are world class in other areas.
3. being a midfielder who is weak in the attacking third and in defending is a flaw, everywhere outside of Barca bubble.
The problem is that majority of La Masia young midfielders possess all 3 of these traits from the above and yet majority of those players are not the new Xavi in terms of passing and vision.
So, my point is that Barca's type of midfielders are outdated dinosuars in modern football who are easily physically and mentally bullied in high pressure big matches against dirtier opponents.
But then you have 5 players out of 1000 like Xavi and Iniesta, due to whom our fanbase think that their type is the way to go.
Yes, it is the way to go, but ONLY if they are absolute WORLD CLASS level.
In all other cases, they will be very, very meh.
There is a strong reason why Barca won only 1 CL in 100 years prior to a generation of Messi-Xavi-Iniesta.
I often raise a similar question:
1. is our style/system a divine system which will eternally work and we just lack a few good players to get on top?
2. or our style/system is mostly a looser's style which historically more or less never worked and it worked ONLY with the greatest generation of footballers ever and even then they neeeded an insane luck and ref's help in 2009, so they won 1 out of 4 Cls in a dominant way.
And even then, they struggled insanely on every single away KO match against dirty opponents in a chaotic circumstances.
Imo, majority of our fans are still leaning towards the idea that our style is divine, the greatest style ever and we should never change it.
And we just lack a few right players.
Also, they often reply: a player doesn't need to be the new Messi or Xavi to make us great.
But then, I will ask: name me one moment in our history when our style/weaker players managed to be a European force without absolute Goats in their prime like Messi and Xavi?
So, when you mention Verratti and quote me, please don't go that route.
Verratti won't make our vanilla midfielders good. Or our style without Messi and Xavi as the winning one.
Even Pep can't do that.
Just check his history after Messi and Xavi.
