The La Masia Challenge

So, after seeing alot of people doing this "challenge", I decided to do it to.

2 Problems before we begin:
1. My english is not even close to be perfect, so sorry in advance
2. I'm not a good manager so don't expect magics and wonders

And my rules to this challenge:
1. Not buying any player (Except the GK situation.. if I won't manage to renew Valdes' contract, I'll have to sign a new young GK)
2. Try to promote as much youth intakes as possible



Pre-Season 2013/14

So the first thing I did is getting rid of the ridiculous minimum fee releases of my important players:


















Tactic:




Friendlies:




And transfers, which weren't so active besides few loans out and Adriano who signed for PSG:




That's it for now. I'll update monthly.

my rules to this challenge:
1. Do not have ANY player who didn't grow through La Macia.
2. Buying former La Macia players who grew at the club is allowed.
2. Try to promote as much youth intakes as possible



Pre-Season 2013-14

So like the first time, again the first thing I did is renewing players' contracts who has low minimum fee release.
Second thing was selling all the "unnecessary" players, including Alexis, Alves and more + loaning out some young players who aren't in my plans for this season.
One more important point: Neymar joined Barca this year, so he didn't want to be sold so soon, so I managed to loan him out and he'll be sold next season.




With all that very-unuseful-money, I decided to buy Liverpool's Pepe Reina as Valdes is leaving us at the end of the season and we won't have a good enough keeper, and Chelsea's Oriol Romeu who's gonna be a very nice rotation player. The bad news is that both of them are on season loans at Napoli and Valencia, so they gonna re-unite with us at July 2014.




Reina's profile




Romeu's profile




Tactic:

Same tactic, different players. I believe in it.




* Players are rotating, I still don't have a first team selection.

Friendlies:




Barca squad for 13/14:



All homegrowns.


Next update: Supercopa, League opening, and a bit of CL
Thanks for reading.

August 2014
Kicking Off...

In this update:
* League opening
* Supercopa
* Champions League draw

So transfer window is getting closer to its ending, and the official fixtures are about to begin.

in August 18th we traveled away to the small city of Valladolid to face the local team. Like I expected, the game was very comfortable for us, even though the oldest field player was Fabregas (26). We didn't face to much problems. Dongou (17, 80) and Traore (20) helped us to get a positive beginning to our La Liga campaign with a smooth 3-0 over Valladolid.





Then, we went off to face Atletico in Supercopa's first match. The first half was quite boring, until Messi striked a great goal at the 41th minute. Atletico managed to equalize very soon after the second half began, with Jose Sosa scoring at the 53th minute.





In the second round of La Liga, we hosted Valencia and I had quite low expectations because I wasn't sure about my team's quality, but they proved me that I can count on them. Pedro, Tello, Bagnack and Messi celebrated over the Los Ches.





The month ended with the Supercopa's second game, which was much easier:






Champions League draw:



I think we got a nice but tricky group, can't get complacent and think that the next stage is guaranteed.



League Table:





PoM:



Definitely Messi. Leading the team just like I expected him.


This month's fixtures and results:





Next month:



El Clasico. gonna be hard.



So.. what do you think about us so far ?

Season 2013/2014
Summary


I knew I said that I'll update monthly, but I had other commitments to do so I didn't have enough time to stop the save and write updates. I hope I'll have more time for next season.

So, let's begin.

Liga BBVA:

The first half of the season was very hard for us. We played fine but couldn't start a series of wins. I made some tweaks to the tactics which lead us to start winning, and eventually after the 19th game we finally took over the 1st place and held it until the end.




Messi was very good with 36 goals and 20 assists (25 goals and 15 assists in the league), and alot of contribution to the team's game.




But there are 2 players who I would like to mention. The first one is Tello. I must admit that I was worried about what will happen in the left wing, but Tello proved me wrong and provided 19 goals and 21 assists(16 goals and 17 assists in the league). Definitely learned my lesson.




The second one is Dongou. Only 18 years old and still had to take the very hard place of being a lone striker, and he did that well. 18 Goals and 13 Assists in your first senior year and only 18 years old is very good. I think he is gonna break records in the future.




1 League game that I want to mention is the 9-0 over Valladolid. Dongou scored 5 goals there and the team played really well.




Stats:







Champions League:



Like I said in the league summary, we didn't have the best of beginnings, which reflected also on our European performance. We managed to qualify from our group only in the last matchday, which is quite poor for a team in our level.

We drawn Napoli in the First Knockout Round, and won twice(3-2, 5-3) just to prove that we have one of the best attacks in Europe, but also, suprisingly, conceded no less than 5 goals, which worried me alot.

The Quarter Finals brought us to meet Man City. I knew most of my players are still young and unexperienced so I didn't have much expectations for this clash, and the first match at England proved it. We lost 4-2 and didn't have much chances to qualify. The second match ended 2-2 and we went home.




Copa Del Rey:

Not much to say. Got into the finals, but Valdes was injured since the first match with Man City, and we played quite bad. Lost 2-1.




Some interesting news sh*t:


















And our youth intakes for this season:







Not exciting at all. I really hope that next year we'll produce the next Valdes because Reina isn't gonna get younger.


Last thing, take a look at Spain squad for WC2014. Not alot of surprises, but i'm glad that Montoya, Bartra and Tello are gonna be involved.




Fixtures:









That's it. I hope next season will be much better.

Thanks for reading !