The Youth Thread | Even our kids win trebles | Barça B in La Segunda & other Blaugrana Kids

My report on Diego Almeida - one of the most talented U-17 centre-backs in the world.

https://footballtalentscout.net/2021/01/26/diego-almeida/

 

huge game 3rd place Barca at 4th placed Lleida, Barca B scores off a corner no less (first team has only done that once all year), video in the tweet link:

Gooooooool de Mika Marmol! 0-1 #FCBMasia pic.twitter.com/Q66jJJHlIv

— ■neurophate (@neurophate_) February 28, 2021

33 minutes still to play, hard to find a darn stream

 

Big win today for Barca B against a rival for the playoffs, they fell behind 0-2 but won 4-2 over Llagostera to stay in the playoff picture with 3 games left.

 

How many games they need to win to promote???

 

Translated tweet: [Moises Llorens] Barcelona ask B team captain Alex Collado, LB Alejandro Balde and 17 year old Juvenil A top scorer, Angel Alarcon, to join pre season with the first team.

Presumably this is in addition to all Barca B team players already logging many call ups with first team: Mingueza, Ilaix, Inaki Pena, Konrad.

And of course many youngsters are already first teamers (Matheus the big surprise there):
And finally Emerson Royal due to come over from Betis (but perhaps pre-sold), plus those on loan who are all listed in the loaned out player thread which was recently updated (Alena, Miranda, Todibo, Monchu, Wague, Akieme, Reis) all between 20 and 23 years old).

Related tweet re Collado's contract, this is great news, he's been a bit forgotten relative to Konrad's multiple rosters with the first team, but a vital part of B team which he captains:
[Santi Ovalle] Barcelona have told Alex Collado that they will exercise the 2 year extension in his contract and he will be promoted to the first team next season.

 

Barca B got a huge 0-1 win over Espanyol B today, now tied atop their group with 32 points on a 4 game winning streak.
Gimnastic is also on 32 points with better goal differential and the head to head. Only 3rd placed Andorra on 29 points, and 4th placed Badalona on 27 points could overtake Barcelona B with just 2 games remaining. They play at Badalona in last game but if they win hosting Cornella the prior round they will have already secured their playoff spot.

 

Gavi's first start for Barca B (he's a 16 y.o. midfielder for Barca's U19 team), Pablo Paez Gavira, pretty impressive video in the tweet:

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Amazing story of Barca B's youth movement: https://www.fcbarcelona.com/en/news...er-to-debut-for-barca-b-under-garcia-pimienta
Since Garcia Pimienta took over at Barça B on April 25, 2018, 14 youth players have debuted for the team: Jandro, Konrad, Nils Mortimer, Arnau Tenas and Nico (2018/19), Ilaix Moriba, Peque, Mika and Antonio Jesús Cantón (2019/20), as well as the aforementioned class of this season. Ansu Fati also featured in preseason competition, but was moved directly to the first team.


Average squad age of 19.8 years old

In addition to Gavi's appearance, Ángel Alarcón was on the bench for this past weekend's game, in his latest inclusion in the squad awaiting his debut. Barça B have one of the youngest squads in Segunda B, with an average age of 19.8 years old.

 

May i ask how it works ?

I looked at Segunda division B setup and its 10 teams in 10 groups , so the top two qualify for playoffs ? so 20 teams ? then how do they end up qualifying for Segunda division ?

 

A bit more complicated than that.
I'll attempt my best to explain it all.

In total there are 102 clubs in Segunda B

For the First Phase there are officially five groups.
• Each of the five groups are divided into two sub-groups: Sub-group A and Sub-group B
• Each sub-group is based on regions.

Barça B are in Group 3, Sub-group A.
• Group 3-A contains 11 clubs: 10 are from Catalunya, 1 from Andorra.
• Group 3-B contains 10 clubs: 8 are from the Valencia region, 2 from the Balearic Islands.

The top three clubs from each sub-group will advance to the Second Phase.

The three clubs that advance from each sub-group will then form one group of six clubs.
• So in the case of Group 3, the top three from Sub-group A (Catalunya/Andorra) and the top three from Sub-group B (Valenica.Balearic) will come together to form Group 3 in the Second Phase.

• As Gilmango noted above, Barça B just need a draw in either of their two remaining matches to finish in the top three of Group 3-A.

As of this posting...
From Group 3-A, Gimnàstic have booked their spot to the Second Phase.
• Six clubs (including Barça B) are fighting it out for the remaining two spots.
From Group 3-B the three clubs to advance are known: Ibiza, Villarreal B and Alcoyano.

Group 3 of the Second Phase will be round-robin.

In the Second Phase, the top three clubs from each of the five groups PLUS the 4th place club with the best record will advance to the Promotion Playoffs.

So 16 clubs in the Promotion Playoffs.
I'm unsure if the Playoffs will be one-off ties or two-legged aggregate.

A bit lengthy but I hope all that is understandable.

 

That is really easy to understand , thank you very much , didn't know the process to qualify was this complicated but i guess with so many teams in this division they need to do that.

 

Yeah, great explanation, I believe single legs (but even if it is two legged) then I think the following applies:

IF you make the 16 team playoff, you simply need to win two match ups (first round gets down to 8, second round gets down to 4, and all 4 advance to Segunda). And of course there will be seeding so the 5 group winners would play the 4 of the 3rd place teams (and the one lucky 4th placed team) in the first round, 3 higher placed second placers playing lower placed 2nd placers plus the top 3rd place team.

 

Notice that Inaki Pena was not the 3rd keeper for Barca today, made me wonder if he might still join Barca B for their run in of final 2 games plus playoffs? But I think he was already promoted to the first team, in which case I don't think he could join Barca B (in which case he is just injured so Arnau Tenas gets the call up to back Neto backing MAtS today).

Looks like he is still Barca B: https://www.transfermarkt.us/inaki-pena/profil/spieler/283170 and he wears 26 (not 1-25) when with first team. So this could be his time to shine with Barca B, then replace Neto as MAtS's #2.

 

Blood bath on Barca B rightbacks (fullbacks in general), Alvaro Sanz now misses season with broken bone in foot, the other two right backs are out till summer and fall with longer term ACL/MCL tears, left back Balde has missed much of the season but expected back in April. Till then going to have to improvise, promote from Juvenal A/U19 or play a right winger, a left back, or a midfielder (Sergi Roberto style) at RB. In all 9 Barca B players are out injured at the moment (the red cross symbol in this roster): https://www.transfermarkt.com.mt/fc-barcelona-b/kader/verein/2464

 

Cool post from the Barca subreddit, builds a starting 11 plus a bench of La Masia grads (although many noted Araujo was not really La Masia as he was bought in 2018 and only spent time at Barca B). My other quibble would be that this does not include any of the La Masia grads still owned by Barcelona but out on loan like Alena and Miranda for instance. And of course there are many other La Masia greats playing for other teams but no longer under Barca contract (Icardi, Adama Traore, Grimaldo, Olmo, Keita Balde, etc.) who I think are rightly excluded:

 

What an amazing freekick from Collado !!!

 

Possible Busquets replacement, Nico Gonzalez, nice video of his first touches and passes he makes thereafter, very nice:

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19 y.o., 6 foot 2 inches; already getting more minutes than Oriol Busquets.

 

Barca B in a 1-1 draw at Ibiza after going down early on an Own Goal, they leveled and there are just 10 minutes to play. Could not find a stream so I've just been following the score. Ibiza tops this table but only 3 points ahead so we could catch them with a late goal and a win here today.

Here's the 31st minute equalizer by Fernandez:

What a fucking time to score such a goal https://t.co/KclB8TiTV1

— La Masia (@Youngcules) April 11, 2021

Sadly as I looked for highlight clips Ibiza took the lead, now 2-1. Both Ibiza goals scored on corners.

 

Collado with another freekick !!



standings after 3 games :

1 FC Andorra 7
2 Barcelona B 6
3 UD Ibiza 6
4 Gimnastic de Tarragona 2
5 Alcoyano 2
6 Villarreal B 1

 

Thanks for posting highlights and apologies if I am wrong, but I think that your standings just show playoff group stage results, whereas for the actual playoff cut off and seeding determinations, each team is credited with their points coming in. Going off of that the standings are actually like this right now: So still sad we let Ibiza get the late winner when they hosted us, and either way it is great that we are in 2nd in both calculations, which will get us into the playoffs.

Ibiza 46
Barca B 40
Andorra 38
Gimnastic 37
Alcoyano 33
Villarreal B 29

 

Collado is good.

 

great post on reddit about how the RFEF is restructuring the Spanish football pyramid and how it will affect Barcelona B.

 

would love to have Konrad and Fati as our wingers next season , Collado can be our AM too instead of playing poor Pedri every single game without a rest.

 

Nice highlights, it will be interesting to see who stays (Messi hopefully, not only is he Messi but he is free to leave with no compensation), who renews (Dembele hopefully, but if he doesn't we will want to sell him this summer while we still can get paid a transfer fee), and who else we sell (Coutinho the biggest question). If all those left then there might be room for Konrad and Collado, but we still have Griezmann, Fati, Trincao, Braithwaite, any new forward signings. Also what about Manaj? We also have players out on loan but most are defenders or mids, so less relevant to this discussion.

It is truly a great year for youth team talent to emerge: sadly Fati who was at the forefront missed most of the season, but Araujo, Mingueza, Ilaix, and Puig from Barca B; plus youthful transfers Pedri, Dest, and Trincao and even Dembele (still just 23), and cameos by Konrad and a couple others. How much more room for more youth to advance will depend in part on the individual youth and their undeniable talent, and partly on just how many veterans are in front of them.

Weird that Eric Garcia is hopefully coming, but Jorge Cuenca who (alongside Araujo) kept Mingueza on the bench last year left for Barca B, was allowed to leave for small money last summer (though we retain some buy back and sell on interests). I do recognize that Garcia played for City's first team so I am more excited by his arrival, but for a player who outplayed Mingueza to leave for a song seems a bit odd (but all that was before any of us knew who Mingueza was).

 

Thanks for sharing. Good to have the full before-and-after picture. I like the change overall. My only complaint with it is I think every club in the Primera RFEF (and probably the 90 teams in Segunda RFEF too) should gain entry into the CdR (except "B" teams of course).