Barcelona FC

As the say Barcelona is not a club “mes que un club” or more than a club. A part of Catalunia Barcelona has been the poorer cousin of its arch rival Real Madrid for decades now. But what they have developed over a period of last couple of years is a brand of soccer that is as unique as it can get and is beautiful to watch. Interestingly this brand of football has been introduced into the side by Dutchmen like John Cryuff who played for Barca and later coached them too. This brand of soccer is unparalleled and this revolves around possession of the soccer ball and using very high degree of control and not using power and sprints as a mode of opening up defenses. This has contributed heavily to the success of the club in the last decade.
Noticably club soccer in the last couple of years has graduated more into an organized assault of speed and power led by clubs like Chelsea and AC Milan. The skill aspect of the game is seriously missing. Barceona has been able make hay of the skill shortcomings of such teams to win consistently over a period of time. Such a game requires consitency in the players as you need to know each others senses really well, so well that you know each others instinct which could help fool opponents and help them pass the ball with ease under impossible conditions. The reason why Barcelona has been so successful is that they have cultured players from their childhood in a way that ultimately they know each other like the back of their hands. In the current lot the core of the team Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Pique, Puyol, Pedro, Bojan, Valdes etc are all prodigies of the Barca academy. Some of their products are not paying with them now but are some of the best players in the world. One such example is Cesc Fabregas who is keen to move back home even though he is aware that he might not be able to get a place in the playing 11 very often, this coming from Arsenal where he is the skipper.
“Camp Nou is not a stadium it’s a temple” as they say, you would not need cheerleaders in a game of soccer as there is already so much passion in the hearts of anyone who is at Camp Nou supporting the Catalans. Camp Nou has witness the finest players in the world graduating to the level that made them worldclass. This is the difference between Barca and others, Barca usually does not buy superstars it creates superstars and it moulds them into superstars. Its not easy for the core Barcelona strength to leave the club easily that’s why you don’t even notice the core team getting transfer offers, not even Leo Messi. Catalans usually did not consider themselves as a part of Spain and this rivalry between the various provinces never let the Spainish soccer team unite with each other which eventually meant Spainiards were underachievers at the national level even though the Spainish clubs have been the best in the world for the last two decades.