What FC Barcelona can teach other clubs

Not too many realize the history making of this FC Barcelona team. The majority are too focused on their playing excellence and clear dominance over their opponents that they overlook the big picture. FC Barcelona has created a winning team through a strong youth development program over the last 30 years. They are the institution to follow for developing top class football athletes. That is the true difference between the catalan squad and other teams like Real Madrid, Manchester United, AC Milan, among others that focus on acquiring players rather than develop them from their youth divisions.

After decades of work, Barcelona’s youth academies have paid large dividends. This past week alone their superiority was demonstrated in the Liga’s Clasico and in the Fifa Club World Cup where they made  Santos of Brasil look like an amateur team. World class players like Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Fabregas, Pique all come from the Barcelona youth teams and are live examples of how important youth development is in football and in sports in general. More professional teams should make the effort to learn from FC Barcelona and start implementing for the long-term and invest massive resources in their youth divisions in order to create more spectacular teams like the one we are seeing today.  

Why do Americans call Football, ‘Soccer’?

Since I can remember, football has been the name of my favorite sport. As a child it always was called football. Then I move to the States and quickly learned that football was a sport played with an egg shaped ball and players with helmets handling the ball with their hands. And the sport I have known since birth as ‘football’ is called soccer. Confusing right? Well,  perhaps not but it is definitely inappropriate.

The american version of football there is minimal foot to ball contact. Apart from some field goals kicks and returns the ball is hardly kicked. Furthermore, the shape of the ball is not even round making it impossible for foot control, and only manageable with the hands. With all these contradictions I ask myself over and over again why this is continued to be called football. Perhaps a more appropriate name would be American football or even Handegg.


The international community knows this sports as football, but americans refuse to adopt this international consensus.  Like the metric system, the Kyoto Protocol, football is another example, though minor, of how American culture remains uninterested of international agreement.

Though this post is not all about football it is a great first step in starting this blog, and to show how football can be relative to other matters.