Summer mercato 2012

[Ryo]

The difference between us and Barca is that their players actually want to stay and play for the shirt. When one great player leaves, the rest of the squad don't mutiny and immediatly request for a transfer out of there. When they let go of Dinho, Guily, and Deco, did Xavi, Iniesta or Messi hand in a transfer request? See the difference?

But Barcelona has its own system, building their team from youth to the senior one ... The guys always played together for this club, and that's why they stay and don't care if someone leaves.

Anyway, I'd put a bemol on that : you see nobody complaining when a star player leaves, but look at these players who left ... None of them was from Barcelona, they all came in their prime in Barcelona and left then.

Barcelona builds its team this way : the core of the team comes from their youth teams, and they add some WC players here and there. Dinho, Henry (wasn't a WC player anymore), Eto'o, Ibrahimovic, they were WC players who left Barcelona after some years there.

Back at the end of the 90s, from 1999 to 2005, Barcelona wasn't a threat for any big team in Europe (and nobody never said Barcelona wasn't a big club at that time), they won nothing for years ... It's at that time they started to build their team this way. They worked on their youth, they built their identity and it resulted in the Barcelona of nowadays.

Nobody in Barcelona will complain if Villa, Dani Alves or Sanchez leave, because they're not from Barcelona youth ranks. I wonder what would happen if Barcelona was to accept a big offer for a guy like Iniesta. I'm sure some would start to complain ...

All that to say that we should build our identity directly in our youth ranks, for some years (even if that means we win nothing or almost for 4-5 years), to build the core of our team. Then, we will have to add one or two players here and there to complete it and you'll see, again, players like Maldini (not his level, but the love for the shirt) in our team ...

As a consequence, this money should be invested wisely and not be splashed in new players who will leave, for sure, in 2-3 years (Tevez anyone ?) ...

I too am all for that Geo, and I believe that we are already taking steps in that direction somewhat. But the mentality in Italy is too different from that in Spain. We had perfectly good talents like Merkel, Paloschi, Darmian all shipped out when they were on the fringes of our first team, and ended up losing them completely. They learn our system, they learn to love our shirt, and then we ship them off to the highest bidder for "instant" impact players. It's not working, and I don't see how its going to change either.

Management seem to be at two minds in following their own plans.
We aren't really investing much in youth players, and with this current fiasco of a transfer, we aren't looking at impact players anymore either.

I'm really confused as to what Fester and Berlu hope to achieve for the club, other than to "save 170 Million". If we actually had a sound plan, and a modus operandi to follow through, I wouldn't be so angry or negative. I can wait 5 or 7 years if thats what is necessary to make us into a self-sustaining success of a club again, but currently I don't see us going anywhere, nowhere at all, except down for the long term.

Our current business model of "Hope your cheap players have a breakout year, and sell them off to the highest bidder" is not going to work. I think everyone knows that much at least.