La Masia Revival

Context:

It is the summer of 2017, and Barcelona Football Club is in disarray. The season ended with Real Madrid winning their second Champions league in a row whilst also collecting the league trophy, whilst the Blaugrana could only manage to win the Copa del Rey. This poor performance has cost manager Luis Enrique his job. However, his departure is overshadowed by that of Brazilian Neymar in a record breaking transfer to Paris. Now, to compound matters further, Marc’s has released a report detailing how a series of substantial loans taken out by Barcelona, to finance recent transfers, need repaying in the next few seasons. This new financial dilemma will put an end to Barca’s recent free spending. It also puts an end to talks with Enriques successor, Ernesto Valverde, who is unwilling to work with financial shackles attached.

These are not the only issues facing Barcelona President, Josep Bartomeu, however. Pressure is mounting from the clubs socios to see more youth team prospects make it into the first team. The seriousness of this displeasure has been made apparent by the recent addition of Barcelona legend Carles Puyol o the board. Puyol’s recent attacks on the Barcelona hierarchy for the neglect of La Masia players has catapulted him into the spotlight. Whilst elections are not due until 2021, Bartomeu is beginning to fear that he may not last that long as the chances of a coup in the Barcelona board room are rising by the hour.

In a last ditch attempt to both appease the fans desire to see La Masia candidates succeed, and to emulate the success of Barca great, Pep Guardiola, Bartomeu promotes young and inexperienced Xavi Martell, from his role as B team coach to first team coach. All his hopes now ride on the 36 year old Spaniard to achieve success or he may be out the door.

Rules:
Flung into the spotlight, Martell knows he is up against all the odds and will need to work harder than he has ever worked before. In a meeting he calls his staff together to agree on a plan to achieve both his goals of success and injection of youth.

In terms of La Masia players, they decide each season to promote atleast:
-1 player to the First XI
-1 player to the bench
-2 players to the squad
They also decide that promoted first team players cannot be replaced by external transfers for 3 seasons.

In order to clear some room for these players they realise that they will need to clear the club of some of its older players. Any players already 30 will be phased out as soon as possible and from now on, players will cease to play after the season in which they turn 30.

Due to financial restraints in the club, Martell realises that they will have little opportunity to improve the club via transfers. However, he also realised they are needed to improve the quality of the team on a short term basis to return glory to the Camp Nou. The group decide that one marquee transfer will be permitted per season, with the remnants of the budget being spent on youth players that can either be integrated into the team, or developed and sold for profit. They also decide that, in order to increase the length of time to newcomers feature in the team, no players aged 27 or older may be bought.

In his meeting with the board, Martell is also given a few extra goals:
-in the first 3 seasons, there must be negative net spend. Afterwards the club must make 75 million every three years.
-within 3 seasons the board expects the team to have won the champions league once and the league twice. Afterwards, atleast one of these competitions must be won per year.

The meeting leaves Martell feeling like he has well and truly been thrown in at the deep end. Will he succeed? Only time will tell.

Summer Months:

In order to secure future replacements for Messi and Busquets, Barcelona secures the signings of 2 young Brazilian players. Attacker, Rodrygo, joined for £6m from Santos, whilst midfielder Arthur joined for £13m from Gremio. In these two transfers, Barcelona have secured two of the most highly regarded youth prospects in Football. Meanwhile, both Vidal (West Brom) and Vermaelen (Stoke) left the club for a combined £12m. Whilst this leaves the club with a net spend of £7m, Manager Xavi Martell is confident that they will end the season in the green.

On the pitch Barcelona impressed. In their wins against Levante (3-1) and Lazio (2-0) attackers Lionel Messi (2G) and Luis Suárez (1G, 2A) where instrumental.

Barcelona began their Super Cup tie against Real Madrid with a 1-0 win at the Camp Nou with the only goal coming from young Dembele. However, at the Santiago Bernabeu, Luis Suárez long range effort could not secure the win as the travelling Blaugrana fans watched Madrid’s talisman, Cristiano Ronaldo bag a hat-trick and the super cup trophy.

Barcelona began their league campaign with a 4-1 win at home to Girona with the pick of the goals being a long range free kick from Andres Iniesta. Next up was the first league El Classico of the season and a chance for Barca to get one back on Madrid. A Luis Suárez brace secured the 3 points at the Bernabeu as Barcelona triumphed 2-1.

Barca currently sit top of the table with 2 wins from 2 and a +4 goal difference. This is in no doubt down to the fantastic performances of Suárez (P4, 4G, 3A) and Sergi Roberto (P4, 1G, 2A).

Upto the Winter Break:

September:
Barcelona got off to a great start domestically in September with a 2-1 win vs Atlético Madrid at the Camp Nou. This was followed by wins against Valencia, Getafe,Las Palmas and Sevilla. In Europe, Barca were drawn in a Champions League group with Viktoria Plzen, Juventus and Anderlecht. They kicked off their European Campaign with a 4-0 win away to Viktoria Plzen and a 6-0 win at home to Anderlecht. The end of month awards saw Martell and Dembele pick up the Manager of the Month and Player of the Month respectively.

October:
Unfortunately for the Blaugrana, they could not replicate Septembers 100% record in October, mainly due to controversy on and off the pitch. The start of the month saw Croatian playmaker Ivan Rakitic signal his intentions to leave the Catalan club “as soon as humanely possible”. He cited his lack of playtime as the reason, however sources close to the player hinted that he felt isolated at the club after the purchase of Coutinho. Manager Xavi Martell offered no comment on the situation, except that Rakitic would be sold as soon as possible “as long as the price is right”. Barca started the month with a 4-1 win at home to Eibar in the league but the next two results were poor. Away to Espanyol Barcelona collapses from a 2-0 lead in the 82nd minute to 2-2 at full time. In their next match it fished 1-1 away to Levante but two Barcelona goals from Suárez and Dembele were controversially called offside. In Europe, Barcelona dropped points for the first time in a 0-0 in Turin. In the return leg however, an 88th minute goal from Messi secured a 2-1 win. In the Spanish Cup fourth round first leg, Barcelona won 5-0 in Ponferrada.

November:
Barcelona has a fantastic month in November, winning against Leganes, Villarreal and Celts Vigo in the league. In Europe they secured qualification to the knockouts with a game to spare by thrashing Viktoria Plzen 6-0, a match that featured a 15 minute hat trick from Suárez. They also secured advancement in the cup by beating Ponferrada 5-0, or 10-0 on aggregate, at the Camp Nou. November say Xavi Martell pick up his second Manager of the Month prize.

December:
Barcelona kept up the pace leading into the winter break with league wins against Malaga, Deportivo, Real Sociedad and Alaves (a game in which Coutinho scores his first goal for them). In Europe, the Blaugrana finished off the group stage with a 3-0 win against Anderlecht in a match that was soured by a vicious tackle on Pique, which ruled him out for a month.

Overall it has been a fantastic start to the season for Barcelona. In La Liga they sit comfortably in first, undefeated with 47 points from 17 games and a goal difference of +29. Individually Suárez leads both the scoring and assisting charts with 18 and 7 respectively. In Europe, Barca topped their group with 5 wins and 1 draw from six matches with a +20 goal difference. Messi (7) and Suárez (6) sit 1st and 2nd in the scoring charts. Suárez (P27 G28 A15) and Messi (P27 G20 A7) have been instrumental for Barcelona so far in a team that has averaged 2.74 goals per game scored and 0.63 goals per game conceded and has maintained a 85.19% win rate.

Good start with this, be interesting to see how you progress moving forward with such a large amount of young players coming into your side each season. Are you allowing yourself to sign academy players and bring them through as homegrown? i.e. Is that what those Brazilians are doing, or are they going into your squad?