The Camp Nou nursery

Every day, and no matter who sits on the bench at the Camp Nou, a new child appears. Necessity presses. The injuries condition and the youngsters go directly from the Estadi Johan Cruyff to the Barça temple. The door is more open than ever. For more than five years it remained closed in such a way that only Sergi Roberto he sneaked in and settled on the first team.

Now, on the other hand, traffic is permanent because times of crisis force us to look down. Talent from home, cheap and who knows, above all, the Barça style of play, although there are a couple of newcomers to La Masia, without any sports training at Barça.

Ilias Akhomach was the last to cross that border. He is 17 years old, but he doesn’t even break precocious records anymore because the Camp Nou nursery is full of young people who take advantage of this traffic that arises from the precariousness of a financially indebted club, without the ability to make large signings.

The case of Ez Abde, that overflowing and mischievous extreme that appeared in the second half of the derby replacing Ilias, portrays the delicate situation of Barça. He invested two million euros in his signing, executing the termination clause he had with Hercules on the last day of the summer market. It arrived on August 31 and cost more than the four additions made for the first team.

Six young people, four from the house

Four footballers (Eric Garcia, Memphis, Kun Agüero and Luuk de Jong) appeared at the Camp Nou and not a single euro was invested in them. They all landed with the freedom card. Free. Abde, on the other hand, he needed an investment of two million, like the Austrian Yusuf Demir, for whom the Barça club paid half a million euros for the transfer.

He came to the subsidiary and almost from the first day he took the first team’s number due to the plague of injuries (Ansu, Dembélé, Kun, Braithwaite) that minimize the attack, leaving the coaches without resources.

Nico, Own iron, Gavi and Balde they will forever bear the original Koeman stamp. Abde belongs to the brief interim of Sergi Barjuan, While Ilias It is the first child born by Xavi. These teens have all passed in front of Riqui Puig, which is in the second level of preference for the three technicians who have led Barça in these four months.

“We have many young, talented people. We know them well. It is very important to have this generation of players who will help us a lot,” admitted Xavi, who should not only act as a coach but also as a teacher. And even as a tutor. A role that Van Gaal assumed in his day with him.

“Sometimes, they do not know the why of things and how to generate attack situations. They do not dominate it at all,” added the coach in an understanding tone towards that generation that should be the future of the club. And they are already pure and necessary present. These six footballers have landed in four months, but they follow in the wake of Ansu Fati (debuted with Valverde), Pedri, Araujo and Mingueza (all three appeared with Koeman).

Eight from the quarry

They are all enjoying a leading role, above the best forecasts, also forced to responsibilities that would not correspond to them. But in the absence of stars (the substitution of Coutinho, the most expensive signing in the history of the club, represents the true and fair dimension of the seriousness of the problem), it is the young people who appear in the front row.

Related news

There is, moreover, no decisive middle class in Barça, which travels among the ‘sacred cows’ (Busquets, Pique and Jordi Alba) to the newly arrived children from the Camp Nou nursery. “We are playing with nanos, 17 or 18 years old, which has a lot of merit,” he stressed. Xavi. Up to eight players from the quarry used the coach in the starting eleven, a figure that had not been reached since 2014.