One of the biggest things supporters have held against Maurizio Sarri this season is his lack of faith in Chelsea’s youth players and his inability to play them consistently in the first team. The real significance of youth players and Sarri’s neglect often goes unmentioned.
This week I made a comment on Twitter about Chelsea’s neglect of their youth players and why it is so frustrating. I know there’s a rather large contingent of people screaming “just play the yoof” and an equally large number saying “if they’re good enough, they’re old enough.” Both sides, though not lacking in vigor, do seem to miss the actual point of why it is so blindingly mad for Chelsea to ignore the integration of youth players into the team.
Roman Abramovich dreams of a “Barcelona in Blue” philosophy and style of play at the club. We could spend hours, perhaps even days and years, debating the validity and maybe the embarrassment of deciding a club’s personality based entirely off that of a bigger and more successful club. That is not the point today.
The ridiculousness is how Chelsea do not understand how critical youth players are in the playing style, culture and club identity at Barcelona.
The Barcelona philosophy and style of play under Pep Guardiola from 2008-2012 was in the making for much longer than those extraordinarily successful years. For each year during that span, Barcelona’s squad size ranged from 22-24 players, and they always had a minimum of nine players from the youth system. At one point, they had as many as 12. So as little as roughly 40% of the squad was homegrown (truly homegrown, not Premier League “homegrown), or at times as much as 50%.
You may ask: But why does this matter, Barrett? Stay with me. Again, we must delve a little deeper.
Tiki-Taka is a fashionable if totally irrelevant name for a style of play that Pep Guardiola did not invent, though he did master it. This clever little ditty only marketed his managerial ability.
Tiki-Taka is simply total football, or at least an evolution of it. That is all. Total Football, in turn, is a Dutch footballing theory that has been embraced by many in the game. I myself put a lot of stock in it and believe it has much validity at all levels. The philosophy came to Barcelona with perhaps the most influential man in the history of the club, Johan Cruyff, when he transferred to Barcelona in 1973. His influence grew when he began to manage the team in 1988.
During this time, Total Football’s evolution became what is known in Spain as Juego de Posición and in Italy as Giochi di Posizione. Whatever you call it, it all essentially means positional play. The idea has been embraced by every great Dutch manager as well as Arrigo Sacchi and Marcello Lippi in Italy, Harry Potts in England and the Spanish managers you already know.
It is a relatively simple theory and Barcelona did not invent it. In fact, Burnley won the First Division title in 1959 using the basic precepts. Oddly enough, Real Madrid were the first to embrace it in Spain, which for the more recent Blaugrana supporters will be a hard pill to swallow.
The point here is that it is very simple, and yet Chelsea continue to ignore one of its few necessary pillars. Though they have hired Maurizio Sarri, who seems to at least be a student of the theory, Chelsea are too ill-disciplined, lacking in concentration and most of all mental fluidity to actually play this style of football.
Sarrismo has, at many times, broken down into simply passing the ball back and forth. That is the antithesis of the philosophy and shows just how poorly the team grasps Juego de Posicion or Total Football. As broken down in Spanish journalist Marti Perarnau’s study of Pep Guardiola and his football:
"Positional Play does not consist of passing the ball horizontally, but something much more difficult… It can be done more or less quickly, more or less vertically, more or less grouped, but the only thing that should be maintained at all times is the pursuit of superiority."
He follows that with the most important part:
"Positional Play is a model of constructed play, it is premeditated, thought about, studied and worked out in detail…the interpreters of this model need to know the catalog of movements that need to be executed in depth. As in any piece of music, one same score gives rise to many different interpretations: faster, slower, more harmonious… more or less a concrete interpretation that you like, but what should be kept in any case is that the tune is similar to the original. Positional Play is a musical score played by each team who practice it at their own pace."
For the style of play to work the players must be connected mentally. Perarnau admits the best interpreters – not inventors – of this style were Guardiola’s Barcelona. That makes perfect sense, as the club had taught it to them from the time many of them arrived at La Masia at age 13. They grew up together and played football together for so long that it became a second instinct to them to support, move and pass in the right methods.
The moves are premeditated, of course, but who would know those moves better, I ask you?
Eleven boys who had done it together for the better part of their adult lives, or 11 men with various coaching methods and ideas in their heads coming together later in life? You know the answer.
Chelsea’s inability or perhaps unwillingness to let youth players get a shot in the first team is the most frustrating thing about the club. If they want to play a certain style of play then they should develop it in the manner in which it is best practiced, no? They should teach it to the youth players and have it be the glue between them as they come up into the first team. This is so obvious that it is mind-numbingly idiotic how Chelsea continue to ignore it.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Callum Hudson-Odoi know each other. They know how one another move. They know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. The music between them if they were ever given the chance to play it would be better than anything Chelsea could buy and import. Yet Chelsea continue to try this time and time again.
If Chelsea want to be Barcelona they should demand that 50% of the team be homegrown players. Chelsea should practice what they claim to preach. It would be a welcome change from these repetitive half-hearted and ridiculous attempts to be something they are not – a feeble and pathetic practice that is hard to watch.
The best football sides are not a collection of the best 11 players they can buy. Just ask Paris Saint-Germain. The best teams are a group of eleven players who make the best sides.
Chelsea fail in this time and time again, and then, despite the obviousness of their mistakes wonder where they have gone wrong. It is good Chelsea have a transfer ban. They should still sell most of the starting XI now, and start again knowing they won’t be able to make purchases for a year. By promoting players from the youth team you get that natural inclination towards understanding, dedication and team pliability that makes great sides. It is impossible to purchase.
Barcelona did not purchase Lionel Messi, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Sergio Busquets, Gerard Pique, Thiago and Victor Valdes. They moulded them. Chelsea could do the same. But they don’t.
And that is why this is so maddening.