Barca Transfers and Rumors

[Barcaman]

Market is inflated and we don't want to be a part of it (Barto said) so we kept Arda and other deadwood.

 

[Hektor]

I just did a Google search of the next Messi in Argentina and this is what I came out with. Most excellent players have to be developed. Not everyone in this message will make it. It is very hard to predict the next Messi, if not impossible. Some players developed earlier because of early professional training while other develop later. Here is a Youtube film about a player training or in development in Argentina:

Claudio Nancufil 8 Year Old Argentine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9EORK6dmMs

Article in the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...83e627dc120_story.html?utm_term=.14c4e454ed69

Here is another link, an AP article:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uzIpi1eZr0

PS: Here is another player that signed a pre-contract with Real Madrid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sulUHl-Gpj4

Maybe, we got the Independent Player, instead of Real Madrid:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...messi-lucas-patanelli-deal-struck-top-rumours

PS2: I just want to replace Iniesta and Messi. I do not know about Patanelli. It is very difficult, at this time, to predict future mega stars. They all develop at different ages. However, I have reservation about Patanelli. He is 15 and playing in Independiente's 8TH division. Mega stars are further along at his age. Maradona made it to Argentino Jrs 1st division at 15, Agüero in Independiente at 16, and Messi at 17 with Barça. One more thing that I keep forgetting to mention. I know that most people do not know who Pedernera was. He never played in Europe. When Di Stefano made it to the 1st Division of River Plate, he could never crack the starting lineup, because the legendary Adolfo Pedernera was there. That its how good Pedernera was.

 

[Nothanks]

lol this nonsense of next messi
we will not see another player come close to what messi brings to the table for easily the next 10-20 years.

 

[Hektor]

lol this nonsense of next messi
we will not see another player come close to what messi brings to the table for easily the next 10-20 years.

You might not agree with me, that is your right and prerogative. However, what is lol are your comments. I just told you about the succession of playmakers megastars, in Argentina, who were of Messi's caliber. Wether they are another Messi or Maradona it is another story. Messi is best described as a mega star. Argentina will also produce another megastar playmaker in the not too distant future. That is a given. I only hope and wish that we are the ones to get him. BTW, it did not take another10 to 20 years to produce Neymar, did it? They said there will never be another Maradona, until Messi came along - famous last words.

 

[Hektor]

Since no one asked me a question about the videos I posted and tomorrow I'm leaving for a week, I will say what I think of them. The league featured, seems to be a summer league not associated with any team. The 8-year old kid has very good soccer skills for his age, but it is hard to gage him because he is going up against players with no defensive skills and a goalie incapable of stopping a beach ball. IMHO, this league is composed of players rejected by teams with developed lower divisions. Each team has ~12 lower divisions. In order for a kid to play in any team, the parents must sign or turn over the player's right to the team. However, I believe that the minimum age to sign with a team is 9 or ten. Therefore, Claudio has no choice but to play with this summer league. There is another problem.

I believe that Claudio lives in the Province of Chubut. Even though there are provincial teams in Chubut, these teams a very small without lower divisions. Therefore, Claudio has to sign with a team in a major city like Cordoba, Mendoza, Rosario, Buenos Aires, etc. These team's lower divisions have dormitories and facilities for players from other cities (there might be an age minimum, though, but I do not know.) The parents face a major dilemma. They either move or agree to send a 9-year old away to play football. This is something that the parents might not be willing to do. If Claudio does not sign with a major team, I do not think that he will be able to grow as a footballer. He is doing the same thing over and over again. His skills are good, but nothing I have not seen from players, of the same age, from a number of countries.

Anyone with any skills are the next Maradona or Messi. That remains to be seen. All I care about is the next playmaker megastar.

 

[Nothanks]

look man all im saying is investing in scouting 8 year olds isn't the priority for barca nor should be lol

just type in the next messi in youtube, find videos from 6-7 years ago, look up those players where they are now and more likely than not they didn't even make it professional.

i understand you have a bias for south american players, argentines in particular but jesus tone it down

 

[springfield]

It's true a skilled player on age 8 is not always going to make it as a professional football player. But scouting has to be done on all levels, that's what La masia is about. What if i told you that a big club like Barcelona can scout young players and players for the first team at the same time? We are not talking about a small club with a club staff of 10 people. That's what they already do but looking at the first team only we already know that the scouting staff of Barcelona isn't doing a great job.

 

[gvt2000]

Anyone remember Freddy Adu? Lamela? Bojan? Drenthe? Robinho? It's very easy, in retrospect, to produce videos of established stars as kids and claim their talent showed even at that age but the truth is the world is filled with "future stars" who faded away into oblivion. I agree that we need to be looking for younger players instead of spending our entire budget on established ones but we shoud avoid getting hyped by video packages. Take every hyped 8 year old video with a grain (or a shovel) of salt.

 

[BBZ8800]

It's true a skilled player on age 8 is not always going to make it as a professional football player. But scouting has to be done on all levels, that's what La masia is about. What if i told you that a big club like Barcelona can scout young players and players for the first team at the same time? We are not talking about a small club with a club staff of 10 people. That's what they already do but looking at the first team only we already know that the scouting staff of Barcelona isn't doing a great job.

Weren't we punished for having too many foreign youngsters in La Masia 2 years ago?
Iirc, you can't have 20 or 100 kids aged 8 in your Youth academy.

So, if this above is true, there is no point anymore to go all around the world and scout 10s of next Messi's aged 8, when it is not allowed to hoard kids anymore.

If I am wrong about this part about a number of foreign kids (Non EU) allowed, my bad.

 

[Barcaman]

Since no one asked me a question about the videos I posted and tomorrow I'm leaving for a week, I will say what I think of them. The league featured, seems to be a summer league not associated with any team. The 8-year old kid has very good soccer skills for his age, but it is hard to gage him because he is going up against players with no defensive skills and a goalie incapable of stopping a beach ball. IMHO, this league is composed of players rejected by teams with developed lower divisions. Each team has ~12 lower divisions. In order for a kid to play in any team, the parents must sign or turn over the player's right to the team. However, I believe that the minimum age to sign with a team is 9 or ten. Therefore, Claudio has no choice but to play with this summer league. There is another problem.

I believe that Claudio lives in the Province of Chubut. Even though there are provincial teams in Chubut, these teams a very small without lower divisions. Therefore, Claudio has to sign with a team in a major city like Cordoba, Mendoza, Rosario, Buenos Aires, etc. These team's lower divisions have dormitories and facilities for players from other cities (there might be an age minimum, though, but I do not know.) The parents face a major dilemma. They either move or agree to send a 9-year old away to play football. This is something that the parents might not be willing to do. If Claudio does not sign with a major team, I do not think that he will be able to grow as a footballer. He is doing the same thing over and over again. His skills are good, but nothing I have not seen from players, of the same age, from a number of countries.

Anyone with any skills are the next Maradona or Messi. That remains to be seen. All I care about is the next playmaker megastar.

Thanx for the scout report Hektor

 

[khaled_a_d]

Weren't we punished for having too many foreign youngsters in La Masia 2 years ago?
Iirc, you can't have 20 or 100 kids aged 8 in your Youth academy.

So, if this above is true, there is no point anymore to go all around the world and scout 10s of next Messi's aged 8, when it is not allowed to hoard kids anymore.

If I am wrong about this part about a number of foreign kids (Non EU) allowed, my bad.

We aren't allowed to have a non-eu player aged below 18 or euro but not spanish player aged below 16 UNLESS his family is in Spain for non football reason (like Xavi Simons)

And I think most U-10 teams aren't really based on great scouting, they are mostly players/board etc kids
Most of the real scouting is between the age of 11 and 18

 

[Messi983]

We already have some of the world's best talents at almost every level of La Masia, we are signing kids from the best spanish academies like Espanyol (since they are looking for the same local kids we are), Villarreal, Malaga, and other smaller Catalan or Spanish clubs (Iniesta came to La Masia from Albacete)... every year. So I'd say our scouts are doing a pretty good job to bring young talent to the club but it's not up to them how these players will develop. It's easier to predict players future when they are already 16 or 18 (but then they are usually already in big clubs and expensive, especially nowadays) but for 10 or 12 years old kids that's almost impossible. It's like a lottery.

Out of 100 players aged 10-12 years that are now playing in La Masia probably one or two will make it to our first team (but it's more likely they''ll be a Roberto or Pedro type than Messi or Xavi; nothing wrong with that as we need Robertos and Pedros too but people will probably be disappointed) one day and stay here for some time, maybe 4-5 of them will play for bigger La Liga clubs like Atletico/Sevilla/Villarreal or better foreign clubs like Arsenal (we can count on that they will sign some of our youngsters as long as Wenger will be there), let's say 10-15 will also make solid careers in smaller La Liga or other top 5 league teams and others will spend majority of their careers in Segunda and lower divisions or in smaller teams/leagues around Europe and most of us won't even remember their names in 10 years anymore. Some of them will also finish their careers before they'll even make it to the first team football because of injuries or other reasons.

Of course we have scouts looking for young talents all over the world and we'll continue (though probably more carefully after our transfer ban) to bring players from other continents to La Masia but I don't think we need to go to Argentina or Brazil to look for talent at that extremely young age like it was suggested. Based on the number of quality players that Spain have produced over the last 10-15 years (and on the other hand a crisis in South American and especially Argentinian youth football in the same period) I'd say it's more likely we'll find a "new Messi or new Xavi" - although I hate to use that term because there won't be players like them again and every player is unique but people are always looking for "new" (insert legendary player name) players - in Spain than in Argentina. It's also easier to bring them to La Masia than foreign players, especially those outside of Europe.

 

[Porque]

The next Messi could be in Brazil, Argentina or... Japan, like Takefuso Kubo.

Barcelona are scouting, the problems are the FIFA rules and that there is so much more competition these days.

Also less patience with modern technology. Look at Messi, everyone knew that he was an incredible talent but there was no huge following even after his friendly debut against Porto when he was 16.

Compare that to Xavi Simons who at the age of 12 has a huge online following and has fans following the youth tournaments on primetime Spanish tv to see him (among others).

Personally I think FIFA needs to find a balance between the protection of minors and the opportunity of education and development at elite football clubs.

Because these transfer bans for minors to clubs like Atletico and Barcelona are ridiculous. There is no way these clubs cannot fulfill the financial obligation of a child moving.

The problem is smaller clubs who are less financially independent and thus could not fulfill the obligations of moving minors.

There is a solution, but as we all know, FIFA is resistive to change.

 

[khaled_a_d]

We already have some of the world's best talents at almost every level of La Masia, we are signing kids from the best spanish academies like Espanyol (since they are looking for the same local kids we are), Villarreal, Malaga, and other smaller Catalan or Spanish clubs (Iniesta came to La Masia from Albacete)... every year. So I'd say our scouts are doing a pretty good job to bring young talent to the club but it's not up to them how these players will develop. It's easier to predict players future when they are already 16 or 18 (but then they are usually already in big clubs and expensive, especially nowadays) but for 10 or 12 years old kids that's almost impossible. It's like a lottery.

Out of 100 players aged 10-12 years that are now playing in La Masia probably one or two will make it to our first team (but it's more likely they''ll be a Roberto or Pedro type than Messi or Xavi; nothing wrong with that as we need Robertos and Pedros too but people will probably be disappointed) one day and stay here for some time, maybe 4-5 of them will play for bigger La Liga clubs like Atletico/Sevilla/Villarreal or better foreign clubs like Arsenal (we can count on that they will sign some of our youngsters as long as Wenger will be there), let's say 10-15 will also make solid careers in smaller La Liga or other top 5 league teams and others will spend majority of their careers in Segunda and lower divisions or in smaller teams/leagues around Europe and most of us won't even remember their names in 10 years anymore. Some of them will also finish their careers before they'll even make it to the first team football because of injuries or other reasons.

Of course we have scouts looking for young talents all over the world and we'll continue (though probably more carefully after our transfer ban) to bring players from other continents to La Masia but I don't think we need to go to Argentina or Brazil to look for talent at that extremely young age like it was suggested. Based on the number of quality players that Spain have produced over the last 10-15 years (and on the other hand a crisis in South American and especially Argentinian youth football in the same period) I'd say it's more likely we'll find a "new Messi or new Xavi" - although I hate to use that term because there won't be players like them again and every player is unique but people are always looking for "new" (insert legendary player name) players - in Spain than in Argentina. It's also easier to bring them to La Masia than foreign players, especially those outside of Europe.

I agree with all of the above, that said I still think that there is a current problem in the La Masia structure.
I think we aren't aware how to bring player along for first team, specially right now with the high expectations of first team and the fact that every coach who come here knows he will be here for 2-3 seasons.

We don't know who-when and where to loan our players, while some players should remain within the club loans will benefit many and we don't do it right. for example we signed a player like Cuenca this summer and instead of loaning him back to Alcorcon we brought him with Barca B to stay on the bench.
On the other hand Asensio, Vallejo, Casamero, Carvajal etc all benefited tremendously from loans (or sell with buybacks) in RM

 

[Kingkongkong]

What do people think about Maxime Lopez?