Xavi's men

Juli López (Granollers, 1969) and Vicente Blanco Sánchez, Tito (Benidorm, 1971) will be, respectively, general director of sports and director of scouting for the Barça football area if the Yes to Futur candidacy led by Víctor Font wins the elections to the presidency of Barça. In essence, they are Xavi's men, who together with them designed the Barça club project until 2030. As he sits down to talk with Juli and Tito, who, at least in public, they claim to understand Xavi's silence despite the electoral damage it entails. Then, they start a nine-point conversation in which they draw the Barça that they will implement if they win. A Barça that returns to the Cruyff numerical model, in which each player developed a versatility to put their virtues at the service of the system; and in which those who forged and developed the project will fit: Joan Vil'a, Paco Seirul lo, Albert Benaiges …

1. Xavi's involvement in Sí al Futur

Juli: “We have to be grateful to Xavi because, thanks to him, we have allowed us to share and see Barcelona in the future. But nobody owns Xavi, neither do we. We have always said that hopefully the other candidates will take Xavi into account Another thing is the conditions that Xavi is going to find. If we are the ones who govern, the team is the one that we have created with him and in which he will feel most comfortable. But we must respect Xavi. He is an asset of Barcelona . He has a previous relationship with Laporta and it is respectable that he wants to be outside the process. We know what we have discussed with Xavi and what we will implement. We are grateful to Xavi and that we are clear about the future structure. I understand that he is outside the What he wants is to put his talent at the service of Barça.

2. Cruyffist origins

Juli: “Víctor came to look for me; I've been a friend of him since I was little in Granollers. He came to look for me even though I was away from the world of football. I knew he knew the Barça model in which I see myself reflected. I knew Tito liked it and felt capable too. “

Tito: “What I remember most about my stay in the Barça youth academy and what impressed me the most was my first training session with Juan Martínez Vilaseca; it would be November or December 1988. It was when I had signed from Benidorm. I was in the Youth. I really liked it, but it was very different from what I had trained in previous years. Quique Hernández had made my debut in Second B with Benidorm even though I was very young. The fact is that I saw everything very differently; and it caught my attention that, at the end of training, Toni Lima and Pep Guardiola approached me. And Guardiola told me: “You are the Benidorm midfielder when we were children, I went with the Barça child to an Easter tournament in Benidorm.” He added, “You play well when you touch and move. You put yourself in passing lanes “. I really didn't know what he was talking about, honestly …. But it already caught my attention. As you progress, that way of understanding the Barça game marks you a lot” .

Juli: “I came straight to Barça B. It was a revolution as we worked the physical part, the position game. There was Paco Seirul·lo. I was impressed by the communication that existed between the first team, Barça B, Barça C .. .. You always saw that you could get to the first team if Carreras, Sergi, Guardiola or someone fails “.

3. La Masia

Juli: “Everyone can say the same, that you have to recover La Masia. But then you have to do it, have a plan. In Sí al Futur we have the person who created the methodology department, Joan Vilà. Count on him and Paco Seirul·lo and Albert Benaiges are differential. What can be done better? I give an example. The level of communication between Koeman, García Pimienta and Barça's sports director (Ramon Planes) is not the same as we will have. The three of them did not arrive at the same time. And we come with the figure of Xavi, who because of his leadership ability, weight in the dressing room, training …, puts us at the top. The degree of complicity is key. I have been 20 years working in the business world and the key is to create teams. The conditions that Tito, Joan Vilá will have and will be the best to do their job. Next year we have to change the chip “.

Tito: “The work must be homogeneous. I went up from youth to Barça C and they told me: Tito, you can play as P10, P6, P8 and P2. Juli was a P3, a P4. They asked us: do you know what Is that it? Of course, because we knew what it meant to play in those positions and what were the tasks to be carried out. And there was a person who, everything that Cruyff had in mind, was recording it. It was Joan Vilà … “

Juli: “… Joan Vilá was Johan's partner for two years. He was a talent.”

4. The transition at Barça

Tito: “I have an opinion. Barça cannot afford to be in transition for many years. What I would try to convey is that there must be a time when you have to be patient. Now we have young players who are beginning to be present and there are still Players who may be at Barça with a journey of certain years. Many times I hear the word failure. When you win, I don't see any brutal talk of success. Victory seems like a way to breathe a sigh of relief. But failure can exist. There are disappointments in football. Surely, you are going to have more tools than 15 or 16 teams in LaLiga to win and in Europe, because we will have to look for those tools to have that Champions League that we want to have. But I want to step aside and say that losing is part of the process. You can't dramatize every loss. “

Juli: “We don't have the crystal ball to know how long the transition will last. Now there is disappointment about what happened with PSG. But people have to be excited about next year. And the squad is going to be exciting for sure. There is talent. We have the best player in the world, who we hope will stay. There are youngsters on loan that we are following to make them come back; there are kids at the base; and players in the first squad with a future who are already present. And there have to be incorporations I wish Èric García was here already … You can't get a group of players to come out all at once, overnight. It's a process, but you can set the conditions. And there you have to put the focus with Tito on the coordination of grassroots football and Joan Vilà forming a Masia of coaches. And with them, and thanks to the talent that there is, a structure will be created. And there will be a good scouting base so that the team is competitive from the beginning.

5. Bad transfer practices in grassroots football

Tito: “It is difficult for me to make an assessment from outside. But hey, I have information. Matheus has played only 19 minutes with the Barça shirt and had just played 164 minutes in his assignment in Valladolid in three games … It is surprising , but it would be more surprising if we put more names on the table … “

Juli: “There is a statistic and Joan Vilà has it. In the last four years, at Barça B there have been 80 chips, of which 48 have been signings from outside that did not come from the youth. And of those signings, only one rose to the first team that was Marlon. There you can tell that the model has been lost. It is losing what we have experienced. That is why you have to have a very connected spinal column: general manager-first team coach-sports management-technical secretariat -baseball … “

Tito: “… With constant communication. The moment one of the pieces of that structure is not communicated, it breaks, and you have a problem.”

Juli: “What happened inside is difficult to explain. Joan Vilá was inside two years ago and can explain it. What we know is how to do things because it is clear that the Barça teams that have worked are those that have had a 60 or 70% of players from the house. And there the signings seem better. Of course, those players from the house have to have the level;

6. Barça's training model: excess midfielders and absence of center-backs and, especially, center-forwards.

Tito: “I don't think certain positions in the formation are neglected. There are talents that emerge in certain seasons. That is why they talk about the fifths. I do believe, and it has attracted attention in the Barça system since Johan Cruyff arrived, that the club gave the best players. When Spain won the Eurocup and the World Cup, the key positions in that National Team have been occupied by Piqué Puyol, Alba, Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta. There have always been very good players in all positions. And we were capable that players like Goikoetexea played as defenders in 3-4-3; and as wingers in that same system. I have suffered when I left Barça for another professional team because here you internalize everything a lot “.

7. The transfer plan: the Riqui Puig case

Juli: “Depending on the type of player, you have to think if it's positive. Because with our model, you are thrown out of place when you go out. Barça creates a model of conceiving the game differently. At Barça you have to be a 'footballer', as I said. Joan. We have talked a lot with Xavi and Xavi likes Riqui Puig. He has to have his adaptation phase and you have to value a lot, in case of a loan, where he could fit in. They have to play for him, that the culture of that club is The same Tito does not agree …, because here you can disagree “.

Tito: “Riqui meets all the conditions of what we want to generate again. He is a player who came out of the quarry. In recent years, his style and form may have been lost, but he has maintained what we imagine. In 1988, when Johan arrived at Barça and when we were visited by federations to evaluate and learn from this methodology, Riqui has all this integrated. It is like the essence of the Barça that we want. If he leaves Barcelona, ​​he could have a setback because as It is played at Barça …, maybe it could adapt as I did. But if it continues to train where it has been working for so many years, it will surely grow. Sometimes it is better to continue training with the Barça first team and have fewer minutes, than to leave to a club where you don't play in the way that suits him and wouldn't have a leading role. I'd have him in the first team. “

8. Politics with homegrown players who leave and come back

Juli: “Most of the time, if the youth players leave it is because they do not see a plan for the future. Because they are not trusted. And they see that the focus is not on training, but on the signings from outside. Cases have to do with that. My brother (Gerard) was a case. He was in the quarry and saw that he wanted to make a qualitative leap, and his departure went well, but his greatest illusion was to be at Barça and that's why he came back. .. “.

Tito: “Each case must also be seen individually. Let's look at the case of Dani Olmo, for example, which is very rare. And it is rare for the better. It is an individual case, which has exploded. This happens in one of a thousand cases. This boy has passed it is difficult. We talked about Mboula, Simmons … But one by one, the one who is at a top level and can be a starter in the European Championship … oysters, is Dani Olmo. He has done something very difficult. .. “.

Juli: “… I would link it with this reflection. If we had these players who left …. That is why I think that by doing things well, we can recover faster than people may think. The model can be improved. , but there is a lot of talent in the Barça quarry. As Joan says, the work must be more rigorous in the last phases. But we are not starting from scratch. The situation has worn down and the model is not developed as purely as before, but not we start from scratch “.

Tito: “It is very interesting what this candidacy proposes. That as soon as we enter, from March 8, the idea will be implemented. We will explain what the formula will be and it will be applied. Because we have worked on it. And what does it mean? That when you arrive to the subsidiary, and the last step is to jump to the first team, the technicians of the first team will be able to come in. And if you work with people who are in the same idea, it will not be neither bets but completion of the work.

9. Investment in transfers for next season

Juli: “You have to see the specific conditions of each player. And what do we have out there. The players from the quarry, the loaned players who are out. And then we are tracking players who end their contract. Because we have a shock plan, which is to achieve a reduction of 150 million euros in expenses, and that will have to be taken into account in the decision-making policy. We have the general plan, but we cannot specify yet how we will do it. There are three months, between March and the end of the course , in which we will be able to prepare touches that are sustainable within the restructuring. The priority and what I transmit to Tito is that we are going to try to sign players who do not require a transfer. We must be consistent “.

Tito: “The League itself controls your management, and puts it black on white. The financial management is going to warn us about that. It is true that later, at least before, it is not that they gave wide sleeve, but Javier Tebas it gives the possibility of margins if you have been credible. “