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Barca code means Abidal will be third choice
By Ibrahim Ayyub on 23 January 2011. Ibrahim Ayyub has been long term visitor to totalBarca.com, he has also participated in the very first edition of our Crossfire series.
A few days ago, ‘Sport.es’ came out with a story about Thiago and how he has passed the phases needed to be promoted from Barca B to the first team. That story went on to explain the three phases that Barca B players have to pass in order to get promoted to the first team on a permanent basis.
The story also mentioned the unwritten code regarding training and playing. If you train with one team, you will not play for the other. Thus, if this story is concrete, don’t expect the likes of Fontas and Bartra to get called up anytime soon and expect more of Abidal stepping in ahead of Milito as a center back.
The interesting article in ‘Sport.es’ discussed in detail the three phases – Phase 1 “reserve – rotation” ; Phase 2 “rotation – maturation” and Phase 3, “key player” that Barca B players have to pass to get promoted to the first team. In a nutshell, if a Barca B player wants to be promoted to the first team on a permanent basis, then the player has to pass these three phases that deal with the performance and mental aspect of their game. ‘Sport.es’ mentioned that each phase takes about 6 to 9 months to complete so it could take up to 2 years before we will see Barca B players, such as Fontas and Bartra, get promoted to the first team on a permanent basis. Thus, for those who were displeased with Milito’s performance against Real Betis and are not fans of Abidal playing the role of a center back; get used to it.
Additionally, the big key indicator that we will not see Fontas and Bartra was the unwritten code about training and playing. It seems that Guardiola and Luis Enrique have this understanding of making sure this code is strictly followed. Since Guardiola rejoined the club, in a manager capacity, he made sure this unwritten code was to be implemented. The unwritten code is that no player will train with one team and then play for the other. Thus, if Thiago trained with Barcelona’s first team during the week, he will not play in Barca B’s match on the weekend if he didn’t play for the first team.
The logic behind this code is that it is unjust to the other Barca B players who trained hard and then watch someone else take their spot without training with them. However, I am not sure it works the other way around since we saw one of the Barca B keepers, Oier, get called up for yesterday’s game when Pinto came down with a stomach ailment. Hopefully we don’t have more players coming down with stomach ailments to see more Barca B players get called up.
Unfortunately, this means that with Puyol coming down with tendinitis problems and Alves still out with his injury, we are probably going to see more of Abidal and Adriano and not Bartra, Fontas and Montoya. Of course, there is a slight possibility that it could happen as long as those players do train with the first team. Until then, we have to make do with Abidal as Pique’s partner in the center of the defence and hope Adriano gets into rhythm soon. Tomorrow’s training session will indicate just who might be playing in the first leg of the Copa Del Rey Semi-finals based on who is in attendance.
(Editor’s note: The article and our re-posting originally listed Juan Arango as the author of this post. The piece was in fact written by Ibrahim Ayyub and posted by Arango.)
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