In Defense of Barça: Hypocrisy at Its Finest, Eh?

As a proud Catalan Barça fan I could not have passed the chance to answer a madridista-written article attacking "el tri-campió".

Barcelona and Real Madrid are not shy when it comes to spending. There is no doubt about that. The numbers are clear, the difference between both club's is actually small, when it comes to transfer market expenditure.

Well, but a transfer strategy is not only about expenditure and profit, is it? So lets break it down.

How much does a winning side cost?

The transfer policy is not only translated in shallow numbers. What about the titles? 

Yes, and there is where the madridistas stumbled in the last few seasons, the Achilles tendon of a white football machine!

Let us analyse how much the original "Galacticos" cost when compared to the "Barça del Triplete", shall we?

The starting 11 of the "Galacticos":

GK: Casillas - €0

LB: Roberto Carlos - €6m.

CDs: Helguera/ Hierro - €2.5m./€1m.

RB: Salgado - €6m.

DM: Makelélé - €14m.

AM: Zidane - €73.5m.

RM/LM: Figo/ Solari - €60m./€3.5m

STs: Raul/ Ronaldo - €0/ €45m

That's a bill of: €211.5m

The "Barça Dream Team":

GK: Victor Valdés - €0

LB: Eric Abidal - €15m.

CDs: Piqué/Puyol: €5m./ €0

RB: David Alves - €45m.

DM: Seydou Keita - €14m.

CM(AM): Xavi/ Iniesta - €0

STs: Eto'o/ Henry/ Messi - €27m./ €24m./ €0

The first Spanish team to win the treble cost: €130m.

I must say that I am only counting the starting 11 of both teams, still the difference would maintain itself.

So, in the end Real Madrid's most successful starting 11 cost a whopping €211.5m, Barça's dream team only cost €130m. 

On further analysis, we would find out that Barcelona's dream team has six "canteranos" - Valdés, Piqué, Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi.

Real Madrid only has two: Casillas and Raul.

The number of Spanish players is equal: Both teams counted with five Spanish players (all Catalan in Barça's 11!).

How much did they spend on their present roster?

Now, let us take a look at the squads of the present season:

Real Madrid

GKs: Casillas/ Dudek/Adán - €0/€0/€0

CD: Pepe/ Albiol/ Garay/ Metzelder - €30m./ €15m./ €10m./ €0

SB: Sergio Ramos/ Marcelo/ Arbeloa - €27.5m./ €6.5m./ €4m.

CM: De La Red/ Gago/ Diarra/ Lassana Diarra/ Drenthe/ Xabi Alonso/ Granero - €4.7m./€20.5m./ €26m./ €20m./ €14m./ €35.4m./ €4m.

AM: Kaká/ Guti/ Van der Vaart - €66m./ €0/ €15m.

STs: Ronaldo/ Raúl/ Benzema/ Higuaín - €94m./ €0/ €35m./ €12m.

FCBarcelona

GK: Valdés/ Pinto - €0/ €0

CD: Piqué/ Puyol/ Milito/ Márquez/ Chigrinskyi/ Muniesa - €-250k/ €0/ €20m./ €5,25m./ €25m./ €0

SB: Dani Alves/ Maxwell/ Abidal - €35m./ €4.5m./ €15m.

M: Xavi/ Iniesta/ Busquets/ Keita/ Touré - €0/ €0/ €0/ €14m./ €12m.

ST: Zlatan/ Henry/ Messi/ Bojan/ Pedro - €66m./ €24m./ €0/ €0/ €0

The analysis

Real Madrid spent a whopping €454.6m on their new roster. Which totals an average of €18.9m. per player. Out of these players 60 percent are foreigners, only Granero, Raúl, Casillas and Adán came from the youth squads.

Barça's roster cost only €230.75m! That equals an average of €10.9m per player. Fifty-two percent of the roster is of foreign origin. Except for Pinto, every Spanish player comes from la cantera. 10 players came from the "cantera", which represents 47 percent of the present first team.

The profile of the target players

Real Madrid is well known for buying star players...and with good reason.

The usual target is a successful, well-established player. Real Madrid's players are usually seen as a mix between great players and very marketable names.

The original "Galacticos" saw in Zidane, Figo, Ronaldo and Beckham their most expensive transfers!

All of these players were already well-established and very successful. Zidane was one of Juve's heroes, Figo was one of Barça's most prominent players, Ronaldo had already won the World Player of the Year Award and Beckham was ManUtd's star at the time.

So it was not a surprise when Don Floren opened up his checkbook and signed Kaká and Cristiano Ronaldo, along with other famous names.

Barcelona has another type of target player. They usually go for players that have a high potential, which hasn't been fully achieved.

Eto'o left Real with the title of " unfulfilled promise," when he joined Barça there were a lot of sceptics, two CL titles, many La Liga titles and a lot of Leagues and Pichichi title's after he is seen as one of the best strikers in the biz.

Zlatan is a player that could be the best of the world, but he hasn't showed it yet, still the potential is there and that is unquestionable.

Chigrinskiy has been very discussed, but the things is, if he came from Brazil or from Argentina, then there would not be a problem. Since he's Ukrainian, nobody is sure that he will develop into a good player, even after having won the UEFA Cup!

There is also a very high bet on the "canteranos". Barça's canteranos are amongst the most succesfull in the world!

Valdés has developed into a solid goalkeeper, Puyol is regarded as one of the game's most dominant defenders and leader. Piqué has flourished into a reliable defender.

Iniesta is one of the world's best midfielders and alongside Xavi (best player in the EC and best midfielder in this year's CL), he is part of the best midfield in Europe! Messi was pronounced as the best player in the CL and is a serious contender to the World Player of the Year award and to the Ballon d'or.

Guardiola has even said that, he is not worried because of the small roster, since he relies on the talent of the new generation of canteranos, like Pedro, the young striker that was decisive in the Spanish Supercopa and in the UEFA Supercup!

On Laporta's quote

My fellow writer Deepak made a huge mistake, since he quoted Laporta wrongly.

The Catalan President said: "We make "Ballon d'Or" players, Real Madrid buys them!"

So how does this change the subject? Now it is not about youth players it is about players that developed at the club.

A Real Madrid player has not won the Ballon d'Or since 1959 (Di Stefano)! Although more Real players have won this coveted award, they won it while playing at another club, all of them, since 1959! Most surprisingly, they won it before joining the team!

Calderón tried to break this tradition by signing promising players like Huntelaar, Sneijder and Van der Vaart, but they all became a bust at Madrid and will try to relaunch their career elsewhere.

Whereas Barcelona has a long list of players that won the Balon d'Or for their performance with "la blaugrana". Examples: Stoichkov, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Figo, Ronaldinho, and now (most probably) Messi.

So, although the facts are there, Real Madrid fans like to look only at one side of the problem, like their newspaper "As" that had the following title after Barça won the Supercup:

"A dull match between two shitty teams!"