Since the last few seasons, a good part of the FC Barcelona first team has been comprised of young talents who have proven themselves on the pitch. Players like Pedri, Gavi, Balde, Araujo, Lamine Yamal, and Fermin Lopez have all been important parts of Xavi’s team this season, showing the head coach’s belief in these youngsters.
However, Xavi has blended these youngsters with some highly experienced players like Lewandowski, Gundogan, Ter Stegen, Inigo Martinez, Raphinha, etc., who provide leadership to the team in difficult moments.
Still, the youth makes a larger portion of the Barcelona first team, and as SPORT has noted, this superiority of the youth is only strengthened with the arrival of Vitor Roque. With Roque, the average age of the Barcelona squad has decreased from 26.2 years to 25.9 years.
With the Brazilian’s arrival, the number of players within the 16-25 age bracket has now increased to 11. The players in this category include Lamine Yamal (16), Vitor Roque (18), Gavi (19), Alejandro Balde and Fermín Lopez (20), Pedri (21), Ferran Torres (23), Ronald Araujo, Joao Félix and Iñaki Peña (24) and Jules Koundé (25).
The 26-30 age bracket has 4 representatives in the team, including Raphinha and Christensen (27), Frenkie De Jong, and Joao Cancelo (29).
The 31-35 bracket has 7 players: Ter Stegen and Sergi Roberto (31), Iñigo Martínez and Oriol Romeu (32), Marcos Alonso and Ilkay Gündogan (33) and Lewandowski (35).
The economic problems being faced by FC Barcelona have somewhat forced the club’s hand to bet mainly on the youth. The Catalans are currently pursuing a policy of looking for players with potential abroad, and bringing them to Europe to explode and increase their value, while also protecting the players that come from their youth academies.
This trend is set to continue at Barcelona unless there is a huge injection of cash into the club from potential sales, or from involvement in projects like the European Super League.
