The reasons behind Barca’s success

For a team to win six trophies in a single season is a remarkable success in football today since it takes a lot of hard work and consistency to win even one major title, let alone six. A lot of time will pass until a team can repeat what Barcelona have just done with Pep Guardiola and his players until then carrying the title of the greatest team that ever played. Reasons for this success are numerous and they span from club’s impressive youth academy, across amazing players to Josep Guardiola who made all this possible.

Even the birds know Barcelona were the team that played the best football last season and that they thoroughly deserve all the honours, and they owe it all to club’s strategy. The Camp Nou outfit puts a big emphasis on their youth academy that produces a lot of quality players for the first team set-up and it is a real triumph of football to see a team where key positions are occupied by home grown players win all major trophies in a single season. It is no wonder that Victor Valdes, Gerard Pique, Carles Puyol, Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Sergio Busquets are such a great players when we know they have come through the ranks of famous La Macia youth academy. Even Leo Messi can be regarded as home grown player since he arrived at Barca when he was just 13.

It is not only football skills that players learn at La Macia but they are also taught how to cope with the pressures of modern football and how to become good persons above all. You will never hear a Barca player complaining for being benched or criticizing his coach or a teammate and that is what makes this team so special. Another big quality is the fact that even when Guardiola is missing key players like Iniesta or Messi, the results don’t suffer since their replacements know exactly how this team work and what is wanted from them. Barca have their own style of play and every player that steps into the starting line-up is asked to adapt to it rather than vice versa.

For all those reasons Barcelona are one of the most supported teams in the world and they manage to stay at the top despite not investing large sums of money for buying new players like, say, Real Madrid. The Catalans only buy players when they don’t have a home grown player in that position capable of doing the job, which is really rare. Every single season we see very talented youngsters coming through the ranks and making the step to first team football without any problems, which gives the team a big advantage over their rivals. For all these reasons, Barca are the big club, if not the biggest in the world, and I can only see them going from strength to strength.

Is it possible Yaya Toure is a fringe player at Barca?

Josep Guardiola was the man behind Barcelona’s success last season and he’s done so many good things since being appointed the head coach of the Catalans but I will never forgive him the mistreating of one Yaya Toure, who was made a mere fringe player at Camp Nou. The Ivorian must have done something to make Guardiola mad since I can see no other reason why one of the best (if not the best) holding midfielders in the world would have so little playing time this season, but whatever he has done is not worth the treatment he is receiving.

Since being promoted from the famous youth academy in Abijan, Yaya Toure had the perfect road to glory. He slowly made progress and developed his skills in Beveren, Metalurg Donetsk, Olympiakos and Monaco before making a dream transfer to Barcelona. It is at Camp Nou that Yaya Toure showed the footballing world what those close to him already knew and blossomed into a world-class player.

Despite not being an automatic first choice in Guardiola’s side at the start of last season, his impressive footballing qualities quickly shown and earned him a starting berth. Toure bossed the midfield in every single game last term and was one of the most important players in the race for the historic treble, and at the same time fulfilled one of the biggest Barcelona goals.

His versatility helped Barcelona (Barcelona news) in the decisive matches last season since he played as a centre-back even in the Champions League final against United, in which he made Ronaldo look like a pub player for big part of the game.

However, due to an unknown reason he has fallen out with Josep Guardiola this term and the boss no longer treats him as a first team regular. This doesn’t have a big effect on the results since Barcelona have big strength in depth but is certainly making life difficult for both Toure and his teammates.

The friendly giant, as Toure often strikes the people who engage in conversation with him, is now one of the most sought-after footballers in the world, with the biggest European clubs constantly on alert to latest developments from Camp Nou. Arsene Wenger is a big fan of the player and he would love to have him in the squad, although Manchester City also emerged as favourites to sign him, provided he becomes available, mostly due to his close relationship with brother Kolo. Yaya has already stated he would love to play alongside his brother Kolo and this is something Mark Hughes can take advantage of and sign one hell of player. I just hope his situation will be resolved as quickly as possible since the world football is missing a lot with Yaya Toure sitting on the bench, even at Barcelona.