FC Barcelona have traditionally been one of the clubs that have preferred training and developing raw talent to turn them into top-class players rather than relying on the market to get elite footballers.
This aspect of the club’s identity has been quite prominent in the last few years as well, particularly as the economic situation of the club has kept it from spending irresponsibly high amounts of money on footballers from other clubs.
Thus, Barcelona have been signing players with a high projection at a rather young age, so they do not have to pay extra money for them, and such signings also usually have a low risk attached to them as their values usually only increase as years pass.
Now, in line with this policy, SPORT reports that Barcelona have decided to send one of their analysts to the Sao Paolo Junior Cup, or Copinha, which is one of the most notable footballing events in Brazil.
The 54th edition of this Under-20 competition will start on January 2nd, and its final is scheduled for 25th January, which also happens to be Sao Paolo’s founding anniversary.
Almost every Brazilian talent that dreams of playing in Europe has to play in this tournament, as there are scores of scouts from big European clubs attending the tournament. Barcelona themselves discovered Vitor Roque in 2022 when he was playing in the Copinha with Cruzeiro.
Barcelona have decided to send scouts to this tournament despite their financial difficulties, which kept them from sending anyone to the last U-17 World Cup held in Indonesia.
The lack of any representative in the U-17 World Cup was strange, keeping in view the club’s strained resources which means Barcelona would have to rely mainly on young talents going forward. In fact, several Barcelona youngsters were participating in this tournament and shone with their teams.
Their strained resources could have kept them from sending anyone to that event, but the Blaugranes will be seeing the Copinha as an investment opportunity and thus will send a scout to Brazil.
