Have barca lost their identity?

Pique, messi, puyol, xavi, iniesta, busquests etc etc. What is common in these names?

  1. They play or played for Barcelona and all of them hold the crown of club legends.
  2. All of they came out of la masia and except pique who played with united for a while, each on of them played their entire career in Barcelona.
    So, that’s a great thing for any clubs academy and the barca supporters use to taunt other clubs especially Madrid for their buying the best talent on market approach. Also the long list of of talent just prove that la masia is probably the best academy in Europe and the discussion should probably end here. Right?
    But wait, neymar, suarez, Coutinho, dembele, Malcolm, umtiti and now griezmann, what is happening. They haven’t produced a world class player in a while. They are just buying talents. They also sold probably three of their highest rated young players to Dortmund this season. According to a FEW reports the condition of la masia is so bad that even the food is not meeting the nutrition standards. https://www.barcablaugranes.com/platform/amp/2018/7/13/17565398/barcelona-need-major-changes-to-restore-la-masia-to-its-former-glory
    What has gone wrong at la masia and at Barcelona? Have they lost their identity? If so then why? Who is responsible for this?
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Yes, ever since the new board under Sandro Rossell and later succeeded by Jose Maria Bartomeu came in, the club has been losing its identity with every season. This board removed Johan Cruyff from his position as Honorary President to celebrate his history and glory with the club. They started prioritising business over values (Barcelona used to pay unicef to have them on their shirts, the board revoked that deal and brought in Qatar Foundation instead). La Masia took a step back and the methodology changed hands with directors and principals involved, the reason why Masia hasn’t produced a world class talent in years and most of them did not even get fair chances in the first team. They brought in coaches who no longer adhere to the club’s principle of playing attractive football while maintaining possession and have sought after big names and superstars like Real Madrid to fill the squad which has turned out to be unsustainable in the long run. This club is still over-dependent on Lionel Messi and have the highest wage bill in the world which will cripple the club’s finances. Meanwhile, Barcelona has also been involved in shady deals with Liverpool, Dortmund and other clubs over the transfers of Coutinho and Dembele and has attracted the rage of the football world.

All of this has been very detrimental to the image of the club and the values it used to represent and Barca fans are hopeful about a shift in power when the Presidential elections in 2021.

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They are trying hard to replicate Madrid’s Galctico model. Definitely not the Barcelona way of operating. With the debt mounting up, it doesn’t look good for them right now.

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ManU & Barca are the two teams known for their home grown talents and player loyalty. You will find many instances of players playing out their careers there.

But, in today’s days of shareholder impatience, values, history and fans take backstage many a times and Business prevails.

It remains to be seen though how far the new strategy can take Barca?

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La Masia- the first youth academy that trained all 3 Ballon d’Or finalists in a single year ( Messi, Iniesta and Xavi) and has produced innumerable talents over the years have certainly lost to produce home grown players or rather you can put it this way, The players who were from La Masia (Valdes, Puyol, Fabregas, Pedro etc) have aged and the pressure of maintaining the position among the world top clubs have made them move towards this unconventional strategy. Large fee transfers for Neymar, Coutinho and now Griezemaan have provided less platform for the Masia talents but that doesn’t mean Barca aren’t producing anymore talents or the players aren’t making breakthrough to the squad. Carles Alena, Rafinha, Roberto have performed when given a chance. But Barca shouldn’t continue this over time as they’ll certainly lose the identity they were recognized for. There are few brillant Barcelona-B players who Valverde will look to include in the first team squad and as recently, 5 La Masia candidates, Iñaki Peña, Oriol Busquets, Riqui Puig, Collado and Carles Pérez will form part of the 22-player squad for Japan.

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