Soccer 24-7 Blog

Barcelona’s Wasted Value On Prospects? By: IBES

These last two seasons summer transfer window has shown us that the club has a big interest in investing in the future of the club through the youth. Part of it is from the club’s own youth academy and part of it is from it deals between the club and Traffic Sports Marketing in getting players from Brazil. Unfortunately, there seems to be a disagreement between the club administrators and manager Pep Guardiola about the future of the players not coming up from the youth academy and it begs the questions of whether they are given a fair chance to impress, whether they are being loaned out properly and in the end, whether it was worth buying them.

Last season, Pedro and Victor Sanchez were promoted to the first team squad. This season, Jeffren, Fontas, Muniesa and perhaps Johnathan Dos Santos and Thiago will be getting more minutes with the first team this year. Sadly, the players that are not from the youth academy will not be getting any minutes this season due to them being loaned out. Those players are Henrique, Martín Cáceres, and Keirrison.

These last two seasons summer transfer window has shown us that the club has a big interest in investing in the future of the club through the youth. Part of it is from the club’s own youth academy and part of it is from it deals between the club and Traffic Sports Marketing in getting players from Brazil. Unfortunately, there seems to be a disagreement between the club administrators and manager Pep Guardiola about the future of the players not coming up from the youth academy and it begs the questions of whether they are given a fair chance to impress, whether they are being loaned out properly and in the end, whether it was worth buying them.

Last season, Pedro and Victor Sanchez were promoted to the first team squad. This season, Jeffren, Fontas, Muniesa and perhaps Johnathan Dos Santos and Thiago will be getting more minutes with the first team this year. Sadly, the players that are not from the youth academy will not be getting any minutes this season due to them being loaned out. Those players are Henrique, Martín Cáceres, and Keirrison.

Martín Cáceres played a bit role last season, mostly featuring in Copa Del Rey matches. He was signed from Villarreal for € 16.5 million after playing well on loan at Recreativo during the 07-08 season. He and Garay were considered the best young defenders in terms of prospects. Real Madrid got Garay and Barcelona got Cáceres.

He is currently 22 years old and a starter for his national team. He is considered more of a fullback but can also play as a center back. Guardiola tried to use him as a center back but it was clear that he was not comfortable with playing Cáceres in the starting eleven and that was very obvious in the Champions League final where he could have started as a right back in place of the suspended Dani Alves or as a center back and allow Puyol to be the right back. Guardiola opted to go with Yaya Toure instead as his starting center back.

The writing was on the wall that Guardiola was not fond of Cáceres and, in the end, Cáceres was loaned out to Juventus for the season. He had just finished playing two World Cup qualifiers for Uruguay and played in his first league game for Juventus and scored in his debut and just started for Juventus in their first Champions League game yesterday too.

All that money spent on him and Guardiola never gave Cáceres a chance to prove himself. He could have been useful as a fullback seeing as he is playing in Dani Alves’s position as a right back, which is what we currently lack and thus have to use Puyol in that position. Hopefully Guardiola’s intent was to let Cáceres start at Juve to get him the match experience to play as a backup? I just don’t see it and seems like Guardiola no longer deems him as a part of this squad for the future. The next two players are part of the pact the club has formed with Traffic Sports Marketing.

Traffic Sports Marketing is known for organizing/commercializing football tournaments and also being the owners of Miami FC and also clubs in Brazil. Sadly however, they are also known for being involved in players’ ownership by buying the football players’ rights and then being involved in the transfers. Henrique, and Keirrison have been bought by Barcelona the last two seasons.

Henrique was bought last year from Brazilian club Palmeiras and is a Traffic owned player. The center back was signed for €8 million that would increase to €10 million based on performance incentives. Not a bad price for a good prospect. Sadly, he was signed and immediately whisked away to Germany where Bayer Leverkusen accepted in him on a yearlong loan. He played in 30 games for the German club, starting in all but one match and was not too shabby.

So it was surprising that when Henrique returned to the club this past summer, Guardiola seemed intent not to count on him as part of the squad even though he could have been a valuable backup for the center back position due to the lack of depth at that position with only Rafa Marquez as the only other center back there. So in the end, he was loaned out to Racing Santander and just started this past weekend against Atlético Madrid in a 1-1 draw.

Once again, when Guardiola states he needs depth on his squad, he decides to dump two defenders? It was great that he signed Chygrynsky right at before the transfer window closed, but why get rid of two defenders and only replace one. Henrique never got a fair shake from Guardiola and begs the question if Guardiola even plans on counting on him in the future if Henrique performs well for Racing. Is he another young player that the club signed and will never use? How can a defender starting in Germany not be considered to be good enough to a substitute in a season where rotations will play a big part of the team’s plan for success.

Finally, Barcelona signed another young Brazilian prospect that also happens to be owned by Traffic and played for Palmeiras. Keirrison only cost the club €15 million thanks to a clause in contract that stipulated that he could go to Barcelona for that asking price. Unfortunately, this transfer also did not impress Guardiola and as soon as Keirrison was signed, he was being shopped around for clubs to take him on loan for a year. The final team to capture his services was the Portuguese club Benfica. However, the big concern for Keirrison is whether that move will do him any good. Keirrison is joining a Benfica team that already bought Saviola to a stable of forwards such as Weldon, Mantorras, Cardozo and Nuno Gomes.

How on earth is he supposed to get any minutes when there are that many forwards ahead of him? I cannot understand how this move will get him the experience of playing in Europe when he might not even make the bench as a substitute. He only played one game for them and that was a friendly against Celtic in Canada recently where he did score. But the fact remains that if he was loaned out to gain experience, then wouldn’t it be wise to loan him to a team that will actually use him. Also makes you wonder if Guardiola will treat him like Henrique and try to limit his preseason minutes and offload him to another club for another loan. I would have preferred sending him out to Ajax to get an option on Luis Suárez.

Now the club does have its own youth academy players who seem destined to make the jump into the first team like Puyol, Xavi and Iniesta did. Muniesa, Fontas, Jonathan Dos Santos, Assulin, and Thiago have the potential to be a long term part of this squad for many years to come. Regrettably, I cannot say the same for Henrique, Cáceres, and Keirrison. They all seem to be fine additions to the squad in a year where the squad should be rotated to stay fresh. Guardiola though thinks otherwise and who am I to judge a man who just won five cups already. However, it does raise the question of what was the purpose of buying these players? Were they bought for alternative reasons that might come back to haunt the club in the future or is this just Guardiola being stubborn and not wanting to use players he never considered or wanted to be part of the team.