Remodeled Barcelona B on the right path?
It wasn't exactly the best goal, but Wilfrid Kaptoum's strike in the 11th minute gave Barcelona B the lead over Olot. Then, Juan Camara sealed the result with a goal in the 90th that made it 2-0.
It was the B team's 4th win in a row, and their 5th match unbeaten. That is some turnaround from their previous 10 games, of which they lost 6 and won only 2. The prospect of being relegated for the second year running was beginning to scare the directors, and some action had to be taken.
Certainly, action was taken; or maybe that's a bit of an understatement.
The Barcelona B of today does not resemble the one from a year ago at all. On February 7th, 2015 - 364 days ago - Barcelona B were beaten by Real Zaragoza 4-0. Of the 11 players who started that match and this match, only ONE was a repeat - Gerard Gumbau, and not in the same position. Sergi Samper and Juan Camara both played some of either game, also. The coach has been changed as well, and not just once. The same can be said of some players. We are on the second or third change since.
A lot of that change came in in the last few months, with the season just over halfway over. Of course, this all goes back to the transfer ban. When the year started, Barcelona B, like its parent club, could not register new players.
Before the season began, important players such as Adama Traore, Alen Halilovic, Munir El-Haddadi and Sandro Ramirez all had outgrown the team and moved on. Others, such as Patric and Edgar Ie, had failed to impress and their time was more or less up. And on the other hand, you get the usual influx of youngsters from the lower levels of the team.
But this past window has been something. Alex Grimaldo, Joan Campins, Maxi Rolon, Pol Calvet, Fabrice Ondoa, Aitor Cantalapiedra, Lionel Enguene, Macky Bagnack, David Babunski and Jean-Marie Dongou were all let go. The news was a bit hard to take at times - Grimaldo, especially, was touted as a major talent. At some point so was Dongou, though few think it was the case anymore. And Aitor impressed in his few appearances for the senior team.
In their place came a bevy of players meant to completely reshape the team in midseason - Jokin Ezkieta, Moises Delgado, Xemi, Daniel Romera, Robert, Fali, Alberto Perea, Salva Chamorro and Borja Lopez - and that's not including Sergi Guardiola, who did not play a minute before he was sacked after tweets the club deemed offensive surfaced.
With all the change, some eyebrows were raised. Not just that, but Chamorro and Perea are both 25, which for the standards of the B team is quite old.
One could argue that the team needed a few more veteran voices to adapt to the division, and that the B team in its glory years always had an odd 25-year-old here and there for that very reason, too.
Anyway, the rest of the new players are younger, though it all raises the question: is the fabled La Masia academy so barren? There are now more former academy players on the first team than the B team. And at times the revamped B team has played well, just not... quite like a Barcelona side.
Manager Gerard Lopez is in his first season at the B team, though he did play there before and was a first-teamer as well. He had the experience of managing the Catalan national team for 2 years, too. It's hard to allege he cannot understand the spirit of the team given his CV, but it's perhaps easier to say he's shown he's willing to put it aside and break the emergency glass.
Simply, they are not really holding as much possession as you'd expect from a Barcelona side, and against Olot it seemed like they were more willing to cede the initiative once they got in front. All of which leaves the accusation open that they are sacrificing the correct formation of players for the senior side in favor of short-term success.
Still, with the team in free-fall before and on a hot streak now, it seems the controversial revolution during the winter has done its job. The question for the rest of us is: was the objective the correct one?
from Barca Blaugranes - All Posts http://ift.tt/1nPycOJ
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