How Cruyff reinvented football at Barcelona: La Masia - Johan was the one who gave barca their recognisable style - One of the things he reinvented as a coach was the youth system - Before Cruyff, Blaugrana would only take in strong, tall players for the academy [Thread]
- The Dutchman insisted that focus should be on the player’s abilities with the ball - Without Johan, we wouldn’t have gotten Xavi, Messi and Iniesta
When Cruyff returned to Barcelona as coach back in 1988, he was determined to change the club in its entirety. Firstly, he implemented a new formation, the 3-4-3.However, the Dutchman needed good midfielders who would be good at retaining the ball.
In order to make it work, he turned to La Masia and changed the way the academy operated. Before Cruyff, the Catalans would only take in players based on their potential physique. Thus, players who would turn out to be shorter than 1.80m where rejected.
Ex Blaugrana player and the current Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola was nearly expelled from the academy for these reasons. However, Johan’s arrival as a coach changed everything for La Masia.
🗣️“I had short lads like Albert Ferrer, Sergi or Guillermo Amor; players without great physiques but who pampered the ball with their touch and pressed the opposition like rats, even Pep wasn’t all that physically, but with the ball intelligent. That’s what I wanted.”
Since then, every team beginning with U8 and up to Barcelona B copied the first-team style of play. Everything was possession-based. And it showed great results. La Masia graduates Ferrer, Amor, Guardiola and Sergi had between themselves more than 1,000 first-team appearances.
🗣️“The ball was converted into the only protagonist and even fitness work was done with a football,”recalls Mundo Deportivo journalist Oriol Domenech, who spent six years in Barca’s youth teams in the Cruyff era.
🗣️“There were more opportunities for the little players like me. When I was at La Masia, Guardiola was very thin and it was Cruyff who said that he always had to play because eventually he would grow. Without him, the Xavis , Iniestas and Thiagos of this world wouldn’t exist.”
