Youth and talent development are significant parts of the identity of FC Barcelona. The club’s history is filled with players who developed at the club’s academy and went on to become some of the best players in the world.
Only in the last few years, a high number of players have graduated from the academy. While some of these lucky players are able to get into the first team at Barcelona, others have to find other avenues to advance in their careers, and going out on loan is not too bad an option for these players.
Eight players out on loan
Currently, Barcelona has eight players out on loan at different clubs across Europe. Some of these players have been loaned out to provide them opportunities for growth, while others were finding it hard to play regularly under Xavi, and thus the club sent them on loan for them to rediscover their form and increase their demand in the market.
The players on loan include: Ansu Fati (Brighton), Lenglet (Aston Villa), Julián Araujo (Las Palmas), Álex Valle (Levante), Dest (PSV Eindhoven), Pablo Torre (Girona), Eric Garcia (Girona) and Chadi Riad (Betis), and according to SPORT, Deco claims that he is keeping an eye on every single of them.
Deco keeping an eye on these on-loan players
Regarding the players out on loan and their monitoring, Deco commented:
“We are a serious club, and we have to demonstrate it. Players must know that we are concerned about them because they are still our property. We don’t loan a player because we don’t count on him.”
“We loan him because, at that moment, he needs to leave for any reason, because the coach has decided not to count on him, or because they ask to leave as they want to have more minutes, as happened this summer with Eric or with Ansu.”
The Sporting Director went on to highlight that Bojan’s new role is generating significant noise but is not something extraordinary:
“I think it’s Barcelona’s obligation to have them all monitored. It’s normal that it generates comments because before, it wasn’t done, or if it was done, it wasn’t done well. I think it has to be done, and it also draws more attention to the fact that Bojan is in charge of monitoring.”
“But it’s not just him who does that monitoring; all the scouts do it too. They pass on reports on how they are. What happens is that if Bojan goes, it has more significance.”
Deco’s comments provide a useful insight into Barcelona’s perspective on the on-loan players. The club is serious about keeping an eye on how these players are developing, and some of these players, like Fati, Araujo, Torre, Valle, and Riad, can come back to be parts of the Barcelona first team if their loan stints go exactly as planned.
