Barcelona signs Ben Lederman to academy

I believe it's just a younger age.

No ,it's a big difference.

Barcelona Escola is like an international affiliate program modelled after the program at la masia. It is a big difference.

Can someone list the differences of the 2 programs?

La Masia, where Ben Lederman is, is the traditional Barcelona academy. It's Barca's cantera / youth teams, and has teams from age groups 7+.

Barcelona Escola is a relatively new international affiliate program, modelled after La Masia. That is, they are setting up youth programs internationally and trying to teach kids in the same fashion as they do at La Masia. You can find more info here: http://www.fcbarcelona.com/football/fcbescola

I believe FCB Escola also does some technical training in Barcelona, but again this is distinct from the traditional cantera.

Another update from the 3four3 blog:

http://blog.3four3.com/2012/04/12/fc-barcelona-us-soccer-academy-mic-cup-ajax/

^since he is in Spain at such a young age you can start your fear mongering that he'll play for Spain instead of USA.....this coming from a Canadian! (you'll thus all understand my comment!).

Good for the lad!

i dont think thats something to worry about. just look at messi. he may get dual citizenship so he can play first team faster though but hes a barca player not a spain player. the spanish wouldnt accept him i think as the spanish and italians dont generally naturalize players.

we have a few koreans in la masia also so we know what your thinking. not a problem for another 8 years though.

marcos senna didnt play for spain until he was 29 which says brazil didnt want him. camoranesi is the son of ethnic italian immigrants to argentina.

so unless lederman is secretly spanish somewhere or doesnt get capped until he is 29 your good i think. the big reason to get spanish citizenship is because it means he frees up a non-eu spot. if he had a eu-passport this steps not necessary though.

i heard he is pretty good at the MIC tournament (the alevin A team won) but its hard to tell so early how he will be once he grows and stuff.

I don't think it's something to worry about either, but this statement is very wrong.

Look at Ibaka on the Spanish national basketball team. If you want to talk soccer then, yes, they did try to get Messi to play for them, but he refused. More recently though they had better luck with another Barcelona player, Thiago Alcântara.

And there are few countries that naturalize more players than Italy, and that goes for loads of sports: basketball, rugby, track & field, etc. Camoranesi's ancestral link to the country is 1 great grandparent. It's the same story for Roma's Argentine center forward Osvaldo, who is likely to suit up for Italy this summer at Euro 2012, along with fellow South American Thiago Motta. And two years ago they bum rushed Brazilian striker Amauri through the citizenship process in record time before the World Cup (read here about the shenanigans they pulled), but they didn't take him only because he fell out of form.

for whatever reason some of you guys seemed to think I am saying those countries never naturalize. they just generally don't go after players of other nationalities much in the same way most non-colonized countries don't generally being the key word. this wouldn't be a dreaded subotic or rossi situation I think.

as far as la masia goes the players are on development contracts and thus not bound by eu labor laws. if your good enough the club can make it happen.

So they don't (generally) naturalize players. Except when they do.

This isn't really a debate worth pursuing in this particular thread. In the context of this thread and Ben Lederman, no one should be remotely thinking about this, and whoever started the tangent should be flayed.

Don't follow what you are trying to say here, can you explain?

10 years? Is that a Spanish thing? Marcos Senna doesn't apply - he was an adult or nearly an adult when he moved to Spain. Let's look at one closer to home. Jonathan De Guzman. Moved to Holland when he was 12. Became a citizen and represented Holland long before 10 years.....

Anyway, I was only joking about Lederman repping Spain - the kid's 11!

Good grief....an entire thread abount an 11 year old

Two, actually, one in the YA forum

Considering what academy he is at it's a worthwhile discussion....if discussing the grand scheme and not the 11 year old specifically.

^thanks.

Just to clarify - it was others who said it takes 10 years. I was questioning that statement.

Not an entire thread just a 1/10 of one. Its not done yet. Why in the world should we have a thread about an 11 yr old who is the first American signed with the world's best academy like Barcelona. That should happen without anyone ever knowing about it or interested in anything about it. Right?

I've complained about some of the other "watch the neat tricks this kid can do" type of threads posted here, instead of being where they belong- the Youth & HS Soccer forum. But this one is different- as you say SUDano, this is the holy grail of youth academies. Even if he doesn't make it all the way through, and that's a real longshot, at best, it's still fun following his journey.

I found this blog featuring an interview with a Spanish journalist, Marti Perarnau, who has just written a book on the Barcelona youth academy. Here is a segment from the interview:

Read the rest here:
http://www.blueprintforfootball.com/2012/04/inside-footballs-talent-factory.html

I'd like to observe an open trial at Barca to see if the "we don't care about physical traits" is true...