Barcelona prove that you can make your own success

I was fascinated to read the comments of Barcelona president Joan Laporta yesterday concerning the spending by their huge rivals Real Madrid.

After returning Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has spent amazing amounts of money on Kaka, Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema, Joan Laporta said,

“There are two models and both work. Florentino’s way is to not think about the money and ours is to work with our youth teams and that showed that there were ten Barca products in the Champions League final squad. Money is not everything because having players that identify with the club is more important. We make Ballon d’Or winners and others have to buy them. It’s fine by me that Real Madrid have bought Cristiano Ronaldo, but at present Barcelona are the point of reference for everyone. Real have erupted aggressively into the transfer market and distorted reality. We could go into debt like Madrid, but it isn’t our way of operating. We already have a competitive team and all we want to do is to make some prudent investments.”

There were a number of points raised by Mr Laporta that made me take notice. He talks of wanting to make some prudent investments instead of spending in the manner of Real. In the same interview he said that he had made an offer of £34.5million to Valencia for David Villa, and one assumes that if talk of interest in Cesc Fabregas and Javier Mascherano is true, then Laporta’s definition of, ‘prudent investments’ is somewhat different to mine!

Theory

The second thing that interested me was Laporta’s insistence that Barcelona produce their own players from the youth system whereas Real Madrid buy all theirs. I thought I would put that theory to the test.

Barcelona’s champions league final starting eleven consisted of, Victor Valdes, Carles Puyol, Gerard Pique, Yaya Toure, Sylvinho, Busquets, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry and Samuel Eto’o. Those who would have played but for injury and suspension were Rafael Marquez, Dani Alves and Eric Abidal.

Regular

If we look at those fourteen regular first team players it is clear to see that Mr Laporta is basically absolutely right. Within reason, it is fair to say that seven of those fourteen players are home grown. The seven players bought into the club. Toure, Sylvinho, Henry, Eto’o, Marquez, Alves and Abidal, cost a combined total of ninety four million euros. That is less than Real Madrid have spent on Ronaldo alone.

If we take a look at the Real Madrid starting line-up at the end of last season we find only Iker Casillas, Raul and Guti who could be classed as home grown. With the signings they have made it is likely that only Casillas will remain in the team for next season.

Study

I haven’t done any sort of in-depth study but I would guess that the situation at Real is more likely to be repeated across most of Europe’s top clubs than that at Barcelona. It is truly remarkable that seven of the starting eleven for Barcelona in the champions league final had come through the club’s own youth system. Manchester United, on the other hand had only, John O’Shea and Ryan Giggs.

Barcelona really should be applauded for what they have done and I hope that with maybe one or two exceptions they do not join in the silly money transfer race that we have seen in recent weeks. The side they have is more than capable of seeing a challenge from Real Madrid even with the big name signings.

Shouted

It should be shouted from the rooftops that the most successful current side in European football is largely made up of home grown talent. The rest of Europe should take note.