Barcelona have done some great things and they are the best team I have ever seen.
One thing constantly pisses me off though, whether it comes after Rafa has signed somebody who worked for Barcelona or after yet another crushing Barcelona victory you are guaranteed to find a post similar to the following:
I'd like to raise a few points that can hopefully, once and for all, terminally kill the view that we can grab 11 kids off the streets of Huyton and conquer the world, because that's what Barcelona do.
Point 1 - Geography
The argument put forth is usually that Barcelona consists of nothing but kids who have grown up within spitting distance of Sagrada Familia, and that all of their players are "local" to the town.
Imagine if you will that Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta and co are British.
The following is the equivalent distance they were born from LIVERPOOL:
Pique - Liverpool
Valdes - Birkenhead (5 miles)
Busquets - Formby (10 miles)
Xavi - Warrington (15 miles)
Bojan - Leeds (70 miles)
Puyol - Solihull, Birmingham (85 miles)
Iniesta - Aberdeen, Scotland (245 miles)
Pedro - Kiev, Ukraine (1,400 miles)
Jeffren - Kiev, Ukraine (1,400 miles *actually born in Venezuela but moved aged 1)
Then you have Messi who was born and raised in Argentina.
So I hope you salute our young upcoming locals such as Nathan Ecclestone of Manchester, Jonjo Shelvey of Romford, Danny Wilson of Livingston and of course Dani Pacheco of Barcelona.
Think about this next time you wish to emulate Barcelona and their "local" team, they are as guilty as any other team of scouring far and wide for the best players.
2. Competition
In England you are only allowed to sign players within 1 hour's drive of your club, your "catchment area". This can be exploited by moving the player's family, but this relies on the child not already being snapped up by another big club and thus removing a large incentive for moving.
In regards to Barcelona their local competition is sparse:
That means with local rivals Espanyol aside the nearest teams for Barcelona to compete with are:
Mallorca - an island 130 miles away
Villareal - 155 miles away and in a town almost half the size of Wigan
Zaragoza - 160 miles away, a team bottom of La Liga
Whereas in the North-West of England:
And that is not including Birmingham and Aston Villa who are only 80 miles away.
If we had the same competition as Barcelona you could easily argue we could well have Gerrard, Carragher, Rodwell, Richards, Rooney, Giggs, Scholes, and *shudder* the Neville's, and as the point above shows they'd all easily count as "local".
3. Work Permits
Picture the scene.
In the year 2000 a Scouse scout gets on the wrong plane, his dyslexia has kicked in and he hasn't got on the flight to Almeria but to Argentina.
He lands to find a country in economic turmoil, and suddenly spots a tiny lad playing football.
He beams, he has found the new Maradona - his bosses will be delighted he has found the player that will one day bring league titles back to Liverpool.
He arrives back at Melwood with tales of this young boy. The club contact the boy's family, unfortunately he has no grandparents with a European Passport so they put the phone down and forget about the boy.
A Spanish club arrives one month later and signs the boy, growing up to become Leo Messi.
Without a European passport, or one in the family a player must either go the Sebastien Leto route of forgery or must have played 75% of his country's matches - providing his country has an average FIFA ranking of at least 70 over the past 2 years.
A hard task for an 11 year old.
4. Reserve Team Football
Currently our reserves play in the Northern section of the Premier League Reserve League, playing 9 other teams.
A league in which Birmingham, Spurs, Fulham and Stoke have turned down the chance to field a team in.
Barcelona have their youth team in the 2nd Tier of League Football (currently 5th) playing against teams that only a few years ago we played in the Champions League (Betis).
5. Money
Barcelona spend tens of millions on kids.
Keirrison was signed for €14 million and has not played for Barcelona since. Having loan spells at Benfica, Fiorentina, and now Santos.
Martin Caceres was signed for €16.5 million and has since been sent to Juventus and Seville on loan
Henrique was signed for €8 million and is another yet to play a game for Barcelona and is another on his second loan spell
These players are by no means write-offs but can you imagine we spent 30 million on 3 kids and then sent all 3 on loan to 2 clubs, even 3 in some instances.
Due to the fact they have so much money these players go under the radar and are considered investments, we simply cannot do that.
I'm sick of people thinking it's so easy to go out with a packet of sweets and come back with a world class football team.
It's not that easy and it undermines the work Barca did and is ignorant of the challenges we face.
It also pisses over the likes of me who, this season alone, has taken the kids team I manage up to both Kirkby and Finch Farm to play against their U8 teams. Every Sunday I see 2 people connected with Liverpool and 1 with Everton at the pitch where we play. 2 of my team have been up to train/play with Liverpool while Everton are after another.
I'm sick of "grass-roots are fucked up" talk from people sitting on their ass on a Sunday morning stuffing their faces with bacon butties while laughing to the repeat of Soccer A.M, then phoning up talk-sport to moan.
Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen, Robbie Fowler, Joey Barton, Kevin Nolan, Tony Hibbert, Ryan Taylor, Leon Osman, Jack Rodwell, Scott Dann, Jose Baxter. Grass roots in Liverpool is fine, bringing them through the Academy at Liverpool is not.
Bojan had a very good game that cross he put beat everyone including messi by inches. Dani reminds me of Eboue falling about from draft wind.
