THE END OF POSITIONAL PLAYING

Last Wednesday I watched Barça-City (U-19). Beyond confirming that the Barca youth also wants to play as the 1^st team (without wingers, a less constructive play in midfield, etc.), one of the things that caught my attention was the fact of watching many mistakes of tactical kind in our team.

Thursday, via twitter, sirocco_10 was telling us as that a scout of Villarreal was explaining him the change of mentality that there is in many big clubs with respect to youth football. For you to have an idea, those who do not know too much how this goes on, remember that, in general, grassroots football develops in 4 stages: iInitiation (up to 12 years approximately), Development (16 years), Performance (19 years), Competition (21). What is it happening? Very simple: the big clubs are focusing more on Performance and Competition (both, at training level and at scouting and recruitment level), than in Initiation and Development.

And that is bad. Very bad. For football in general, but particularly for Barça even more. By all the famous "model,  and its implementation, means.

I'll explain. The last 25 years (since the arrival of Cruyff to Barça’s bench, although this doesn’t like to many), Barça has developed a special model of training and playing. Not unique (at the end of the day, Cruyff took it from Ajax and mixed it with the things that Laureano Ruiz was doing), but so well implemented that it has led us where it had led us (League, Champions League, National Teams... ), and that it has deserved the unanimous recognition worldwide (football and non-football).

The problem is that the "model" was more than a form or style of playing football. The "model" contained all the Principles of Football (I wrote about it a few years ago on the magazine of Martí Perarnau). If there’s anything good at the Coaches Courses of the RFEF is that they establish Principles (Offensive and Defensive), that I have not seen in any other country. In fact, in many countries, according to who you talk, some will say that the Principles are one or the other.

This means that any boy who had gone through the Barca youth football knew the "game", the "what", but also the "how" or "why" of a given situation on the pitch Not now. And this "not now," includes the pause and the delay. The pressure, the possession, the width, the 1-4-3-3 can be used in many ways to play, however, pause and patience are linked unequivocally to positional play. And, pause and patience allow to have lines together, allow unmark support (the "3^rd man", " the free man"), allow to close the pitch correctly and allow much more.

All this, however, is no longer. And it is not that you don’t see it with the 1^st team. It is not seen at Barca B, neither at U-19. But it has its logic. Beyond that grassroots teams should play as “seniors" do, the fact is that the vast majority of players at B (17, I think they are), they have not played for U-19 and many of the U-19 are not trained at home. And, they do not know the positional play; however, it seems that many do not know neither the Principles we spoke earlier. And, the coaches (Gerard and Gabri), it seems that neither or, at least, it seems they do not care whether they are applied or not. And instead of teaching (Professional Formative Football, it’s called now B and U-19, but still "formative", right?), they want to win at any cost.

But there is more. Until now, they were looking for, particularly for grassroots, skilled players who could play the ball, able to run with it, pass, dribble ... Not now. Now bigger and stronger players are searched. And they tell us that Rakitic replaces Xavi, or Andre Gomes or Denis Suarez replacing Iniesta. Or, if Busquets is not playing, Mascherano can do it easily. And they are so calm. As if it was the same! As if there is any relation between a dribbling of Messi or Iniesta with one of Rakitic or André Gomes. No. No relation. The firsts dribble because their quality. The latters, because their strength. Make no mistake.

And it’s also said that, of course, you have to play with the players you have. The coach must adapt to the characteristics of their players. I think it's great, but, all these players have come because Luis Enrique, don’t’ they??? And those who have come for the B, to do something similar, is it a Gerard Lopez thing, right?? Or is there someone who believes that coaches have no say in making the squad??? And the respective Technical Secretaries (Robert Fernandez, Pep Segura) seek what they want or do they follow the ideas of the coach? And all this is done following the guidelines given by the Board, because, of course, do not forget that the boss is the Board. And they are the ones who decide what "model" the Club has to follow. They are, nobody else.

But, about the Board and I’ll talk another day, if that. Let’s go back to our "positional play". They tell us that grassroots (Amateur Formative Football, until 17 years, as said at the beginning with Initiation and Development), continues to work in the same way as before. I really doubt it. But it is that, besides hesitation, it is an inconsistency. That is, until 16-17 years we teach them one thing. From here on, a very different one. And all this, while we are taking kids from outside for the B and the U-19 who are not trained in positional playing.

But, what about the coaches?? Until recently, the majority of coaches in grassroots football were people who had spent many years in the house or were former players who knew the model. For one reason or another, many of these are no longer and those who have returned have done with other ideas. It is somewhat sad that coaches trained in the club go around explaining the model and, when they come back, they do not apply it. It is what it is. It is said that, in the not too distant future, Xavi could be the ideal coach for Barça. I do not doubt it. Now, I doubt that he comes with this Board and I doubt, even more, if he can apply positional playing with everything I have said so far. And if not, look at the difficulties of Guardiola to apply it, first at Bayern and, now at City.

I have no doubt that Barça will continue to win competitions, even when Messi leaves. We will play in a different way, with players that will be different and, with a majority of outside players. But we will win, for sure. At the end of the day, the vast majority of “socis” and supporters only care about winning at any cost.

Now, "that" that dazzled the world and many have not yet learned that it is NOT called "tiki-taka" and it is called "positional play", take off the illusion. It will take years to see it again. If we see it again.

Jordi Pascual

You can follow me on twitter: @JordiPascualP

FIGURES

Barca economic Vice President, Susana Monje, presented the economic balance of the 2015-2016 season. Before going on, let me make a couple of considerations.

The first is, Mrs. Monje, that the fact that the judge has concluded that the famous 40M€ paid to N&N for the transfer of Neymar to Barca are salary and no transfer, does not mean that this transfer has cost 19,3M€. At "accounting" level it will be reflected in this way in the books, sure. But the reality is that, between one thing and another, the transfer (not counting the "real" wage the contract says), is around 100M€. That we are not experts in Economics does not mean we do not know about addition and subtraction.

The second consideration is that, according to the same Mrs. Monje, the accounts have been audited, as established by law and that, for the sixth consecutive year the accounts have been validated without any annotation. Perfect. Or not. If auditors are the same who said they were 40M€ transfer and, it turns out they are not, I would not be too quiet. Let us not forget that the Club has come to recognize two tax crimes, while the same authors (who signed the agreements, Mr. Rosell and Mr. Bartomeu), have come free of any charge. And it was audited. Not to joke about it.

Let the numbers as such. As starting point, when you see the big numbers, you can’t say anything but: AMAZING! They had budgeted income 633M€, against 598,5M€ spending, with a profit (before tax) of 34.5M€. The results were:

Income:                      679M€            (+46M€)

Expenses:                 630M€            (+31.5M€)

Benefit:                       49M€            (+14.5M€)

Moreover, debt has been reduced from 328M€ to 271M€, i.e. 57M€. Another great news in terms of numbers:

Now, let's analyze where these data come from, and we’ll see that the situation, although economically it seems more than good, at productive level perhaps it is not so.

The first thing is that the club received a bonus of 24M€ from Nike and sold players (Pedro+Bartra+Adama), for a total of 48M€. That is, as such, we have only achieved revenues of 607M€. When it comes to reaching 1,000M€ in 2021, it seems to be quite difficult if there is no ability to generate more revenue out of extraordinary circumstances. Because there is something we can’t forget: the great clubs are players-buyers, not sellers. Clubs of medium/small size include in their budgets the sale of one or two players to have a balanced numbers. The large, don’t. And at Barca, heading fastest growing in terms of revenue is sales of players and, marketing (new sponsors), not selling products.

What does this mean? Well, I understand that this means that the economic model that we have is not useful anymore. If you look at the "Stadium" section, you will see that increases 9M€ over the previous year. A game like Spanish Super Cup (paying for socis now), can allow to enter 4-5M€. There is a clear stagnation. I repeat: for an economist, what matters is the total amount, but for those who have to get the money means something is not done well.

Let's go to debt. 57M€ less. But, if there is no the sales we have said before, you can’t reduce debt. We are back in the same place. Since there is no normal increase in revenue, the only way is the extraordinary one. And, of course, it’s not every year that extra millions will come from a sponsor or we’ll sell enough players to fix the situation.

Think, on the other hand, that more sponsors mean fewer tickets to sell ... or less socis in the Stadium. As the agreements are "confidential", we don’t know what the sponsors have in exchange, but everywhere, one of the things they receive are obviously match tickets. The more sponsors, the more tickets you have to give, obviously. And the Estadi has a limited capacity. Therefore, if we add sponsors, we will have to stop selling tickets or, when there are socis who leave the Club, these seats will not go to socis who are on the waiting list. They have not said the number of season-holders tickets. Last year it was 84,000. We'll see how many are this year or next year.

We go to a third point. The payroll. The budget was 419M€ meaning 66% of revenues. The reality tells us it is 435M€, representing 69%; if winning the League and Cup is not included in the budget, we have a problem. A problem aggravated when the amounts paid in bonuses to players exceed the bonuses we receive from sponsors and others. Somewhere the accounts have been done too lightly, without calculating all circumstances. And this year, unfortunately, we didn’t win the Champions League, which always represents an expense that makes all the economy stagger the club. It can’t be.

To all this we have to add the issue of "Grand Sponsor": 35M€ (5%¡¡ of the Budget), for a Board that shows off Trident, Triplet and I don’t know what else. 35M€ for a shirt that wear the world's best player by far, the one that should be his replacement and the best striker in the world. When you see all this, it is clear that, at commercial and image level, things aren’t well done. All this, when you're considered one of the most valuable Clubs in the world (it matters little whether first or second, because the criteria used can have many variables, the fact is you are up there). Me, I'm sorry, but I do not understand any of this. Or they are very bad selling the club or I don’t know what to think.

In short: the financial situation of the club looks very good -although still they have not explained why it was that Nolito (18M€) could not come in January, but we have now these figures of income and profits-, but, on the other hand, the business situation it is stagnant, without solutions to increase revenue, either by way of further exploitation of what is done now, either by way of new activities to do. In the short term they can give us good results and the accounts can be good. Once everything is sold, what will they do?

Club sports model have been already burst. Now, it seems they will do the same with the economic model. Selling players to have benefits is sending us away, every day, of being "More than a Club" and brings us closer, increasingly, to be "One more Club".

Jordi Pascual

You can follow me on twitter: @JordiPascualP

BARÇA B AND OTHER STUFF

Sunday ended the regular season in 2nd B Division. From this weekend we will have the playoffs for promotion to 2nd A Division. Barca B will not be there. And, when things have a bad starting, it’s normal to end badly.

The elections to the Presidency of Barça took two very significant changes at the level of the sport structure that affects B team. On one hand, García Pimienta, who had done all the planning together with Roura, found that, overnight, they put Gerard Lopez above him, as 1st coach. On the other hand, the sports organization changed: the club was splitted into 3 parts (4 with Women's Football): Professional Football (1st team), Formative Professional Football (Barça B, Juvenil A (U-19) and B (U-18)), and Amateur Formative Football (Cadete A (U-16) to Prebenjamines (U-8)). The EscolesFCB are outside and are part of Marketing Area (what do you want I say?).

Each of these parts has a Technical Secretary and still we have the ​​Scouting Area and the Methodology Area (which in principle are transverse)

Is this you see here above.

The first problem is that each Technical Secretary seems to do what he wants. They call it Technical Secretary, but it seems rather a Technical Director. That is, marking the lines to follow in terms of the way of working, playing, etc. With all that it has as consequences. Roura does one thing, say classic "model". Robert Fernandez is only for the first team, looking for players around the world to enable keep winning, increasingly "as is."

We have the Formative Professional Football. The Technical Secretary is Pep Segura. They sold it as the intermediate step between "grassroots" and "professional football" as it was neither one nor the other. And indeed, when you're in no man's land, you end up not knowing where you are and the results are what they are. Juveni B is the only one, with one game to finish the league, can win. The Juvenil A has finished 4th at 19!! points behind the 1^st, with no option to play the Champions League (both, Spanish and European), or the Cup. And, the B...

Barca B. After the disappointing season 2014-15 where the team dropped from 2ªA to 2ªB (although for some Directors that was not problematic or bad) with coaching change in mid-season (Vinyals instead of Eusebio) and, speeches here or there saying if players this or that (incidentally, quite players had been in the Juvenil A with Vinyals, so if not adequate behaviours were detected and nothing was done to correct it...), the 2016 season began with a coach appeared at the last minute with some players signed who could not play for the famous "FIFA Case" and the desire to come back to 2ªA quickly. The reality was very different. At the end of the year the team was in position for the relegation to 3^rd Division. Excuses were everywhere ("they are very young," "no experience", "the FIFA case"...) and when the winter market came there was a revolution. A lot of new players (7?, 8?, 9?... I do not remember), which also meant a lot of players released.

In summer they had gone some as Adama; others, like Deulofeu, still running around Europe and it seems with no return. The latter case seems pretty clear: Quality, indisputable. The character, too. And I wonder, with so many coaches, assistants, psychologists, etc. that we have in the club, no one has sat a couple of hours with this kid to see what happens? And I ask the question from complete ignorance. I have no idea if this has happened or not.

Other players left because, by contract, should be promoted to the first team. Amazing!!! The top of incompetence. Having in a formation team players that are promoted by contract and not because the quality. And, of course, there wasn’t room for them at the 1^st team. And therefore...

We continue. Two names: Grimaldo and Robert Gonçalves. The first seems not very "friend" of Luis Enrique and this does not want it for the 1^st team. Until here, it’s perfect. Now, if the club believes it is a player with a future, why not to loan him and we'll see in a while? Well, no. Sold. No option for buy-back. The second, a player who came on loan from Fluminense of Brazil and sold to us as the new... Neymar! He came to "cost 0" (this was told to us), with a buying option this summer for 7M€. First, if he was overweight; then we know nothing more. The truth is that it has played in the league, exactly the same as its price: 0 minutes. And what is worse, without any explanation.

Now, it seems that for next year, a new revolution for B is prepared, with the aim of being promoted to 2ªA. It sounds good to me... or maybe not. The aim of B is to prepare players to be promoted to the 1st team. The higher the B is, more competitive and therefore better for the players. So far, the theory is fantastic. The problem is putting it into practice. There have been games where only 2 B players were coming from La Masia. 2!! Is this Barca B?????? Is this a formation team ???? If I was told that next year there will be 4 or 5 of these "new" in the 1st team, although I could understand, however, it seems that this will not be the case.

This revolution also seems to be aimed to find/sign other kind of players: now we have to look more "physical" players. This is, Roura continues working, as we have said, "the model" but when they reach 17, only the bigger and the stronger will continue. Is that, isn’t it? That is, as I said before three "Technical Secretaries", each one making the war on their own, with no one, at Executive Technical level, marking the line of the Club. We go like this.

Why do we want a "Formative Amateur Football" full of quality players if, when they reach the Juvenil B, w will not want them for being small? Why do we want Juveniles and a B if, hardly, they will not contribute with player for the first team? And, to contribute means players who can compete with those who are playing. Having 20 minutes in a cup game against 2ªB team...

Zubizarreta said one day, when he was still the Technical Director: "If we don’t find out what we want, we will have to look for it at home." Translation: the priority of B is NOT the formation for the first team. The priority of B is... I cannot see it.

By the way, it seems that Samper is one of those players who, as he has no "physical aspect", it is quite difficult for him to stay at the 1^st team. Nothing more to say.

Jordi Pascual

You can follow me on twitter: @JordiPascualP